Moon dust bag lost by Nasa sells for £1.38m

A BAG containing traces of moon dust has sold at auction for US $1.8m (£1.38m).

But the sale at Sotheby’s in New York was surrounded by fallout from a galactic court battle.

The collection bag was used by Neil Armstrong during the first manned mission to the moon in 1969.

But the artefact from the Apollo 11 mission was misidentified and sold at an online government auction.

Nasa fought to get it back, but in December a federal judge ruled that it legally belonged to a woman from the Chicago area who bought it in 2015 for $995 (£767).

Sotheby’s declined to identify the buyer who purchased the bag.

When it comes to moon landings, the auction was far from the final frontier.

A group called For All Moonkind mentioned the moon bag this week while campaigning for “measures to preserve and protect the six Apollo lunar landing sites”.