Luna samples
Luna samples are the small amounts of lunar soil brought back by three Soviet robotic missions between 1970 and 1976.
The Soviet Union's robotic Luna missions were the first to return lunar samples without people. Luna 16, in September 1970, brought back about 101 grams from Mare Fecunditatis. Luna 20, in 1972, returned about 55 grams from the highlands near Apollonius, and Luna 24, in 1976, returned about 170 grams of drill core from Mare Crisium.
The Luna samples total about 326 grams, tiny compared with Apollo's 382 kilograms, but they came from three different places on the eastern near side, adding valuable variety. The Luna 24 core showed that the basalts of Mare Crisium are very low in titanium.
The Luna missions demonstrated that robots could drill, collect and return material from another world, and paved the way for later robotic sample return missions, including Japan's Hayabusa and China's Chang'e 5 and 6. Some Luna 16 soil was even auctioned in 1993 and again in 2018, a rare case of lunar material in private hands.
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