Moon rock sample. The Apollo moon landings from 1969 to 1972 returned 2,415 samples and over 380 kilograms of moon rock. Most of this is kept in Houston in the USA, but several hundred samples were presented to other governments and research institutions around the world. Stolen samples can fetch very high prices. Moon rocks are extremely old compared to Earth rocks, dating from between 4.5 and 3.2 billion years ago. Studying moon rock helps reveal the conditions present in the early solar system when the Moon and Earth were forming. This is a sample of lunar basalt, an extrusive volcanic rock formed due to rapid cooling of lava at the Moon's surface.