Two new temporary exhibits will feature the moon next month at the St. Joseph Museums.
According to a news release, St. Joseph Museums located at 3406 Frederick Avenue will have two new temporary exhibits opening on August 1.
One will feature a Lunar Sample (Moon Rock) from NASA that will be available for viewing during the three months surrounding the August 21, 2017, Total Solar Eclipse. The museum said St. Joseph Museum Trustee Tanner Mayhew was able fly to Houston, Texas, to bring the Moon Rock safely to St. Joseph.
The second temporary exhibit will be featured on the second floor of the Glore Psychiatric Museum and is called “The Moon and Madness,” which is an immersive exhibit that encourages visitors to imagine taking a trip to the moon.
The United States is the only country to have landed a man on the Moon. There were six successful manned lunar landings from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 to Apollo 17 in 1972. The Lunar Sample to be exhibited at the St. Joseph Museum is number 70035,41. It is a portion of a rock brought back from the moon by Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt, Eugene Cernan and Ronald Evans. It was collected from a boulder on the rim of a subdued crater about 45 meters east northeast of the Lunar Module in the Taurus-Littrow valley. The total weight of the rock as returned to Earth was 5,765 grams (over 12 pounds). This sample weighs 118 grams. The rock is a gray color with rounded surfaces and a flat bottom. It was opened in the Command Module and studied by Schmitt who had permission to pick it up with his bare hands. It is a basalt rock with medium grain. The age of the rock is approximately 3.7 billion years as determined by radiogenic dating methods. The Moon Rock will be taken back to Houston in October.
Does the full moon really cause people to act strangely? To explore that question the Glore Psychiatric Museum will open a special exhibit called “The Moon and Madness” on August 1. This exhibit was designed to inspire visitors to imagine taking a trip to the moon and to explore whether the Moon affects human behavior. Children and adults will learn about the solar system, phases of the moon, and how solar eclipses occur. A timely topic since St. Joseph, Missouri, is on the Path of Totality for the Total Solar Eclipse that will occur on August 21 of this year.
Visitors will be able to experience “The Moon and Madness” exhibit and to view the Lunar Sample during regular museum hours at no additional admission fee from August 1 until October. The St. Joseph Museum and the Glore Psychiatric Museum, 3406 Frederick Avenue, are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, and $4 for students. Museum members and children six and under are free. Admission includes the Black Archives Museum, Doll Museum, and the American Indian and History Galleries of the St. Joseph Museum. Call 816-232-8471 or visit the St. Joseph Museum website at www.stjosephmuseum.org for more information.