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Piece of Apollo 11 spacecraft 'lands' in moon meteorite-lined wedding ring

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The Apollo 11 spacecraft was comprised of two vehicles: a command module named " Columbia " and the lunar module " Eagle " Thermal polyimide tape made the trip to the moon with the first astronauts to land there in 1969 .

The tape's outer layer was silver in color to reflect sunlight, while underneath was gold to expel radiation.

By the time Columbia was delivered to the Smithsonian in 1971 , only small traces of the reflective film remained.

Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com .

He is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of " Space Stations: The Art, Science , and Reality of Working in Space" In 2021 , he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History..