Moon Rock At London Science Museum

The rock, collected by Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott back in 1971, is on permanent display at the Science Museum in the city.

People with an interest in space travel and planets should take a trip to the capital to take a closer look, but first they may want to sort out accommodation in one of the high quality London apartments on offer.

The rock - cut from the larger Great Scott rock - is being displayed to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 15 Lunar mission. Astronauts lifted off from Cape Canaveral 40 years ago on Tuesday to embark on the mission.

The 83g olivine basalt rock was formed billions of years ago and since its arrival on Earth has been kept in a nitrogen-filled glass container to protect it from our planet's atmosphere.

It is among a collection of almost 400kg of rocks brought back from the Moon by astronauts on missions between 1969 and 1972.

Doug Millard, senior curator of space technologies, said: 'Pieces of Moon rock such as this one have provided scientists with valuable information about the history and formation of the Moon. For example, we have learned that the Moon is about 4.5 billion years old and is likely to have been formed from the debris thrown into orbit when a planet-sized body slammed into the young Earth.'