Rare Apollo mission moon rock back in Cyprus after 50 years

A spectator looks at a tiny piece of moon rock encased in a plastic globe, on display at an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the last of the US manned missions to the moon and the Artemis spacecraft now orbiting the moon, in Nicosia, Cyprus (Petros Karadjias/AP/PA)

Half a century after US astronauts brought it back from the moon’s surface, a minute piece of extraterrestrial rock has finally reached its intended destination, the island of Cyprus.

The 1.1 gram piece of moon rock was on display on Thursday at an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the last of the US Apollo lunar landings, and the Artemis mission — whose Orion capsule is on its way back to Earth after orbiting the moon.