A bag used astronaut Neil Armstrong containing traces of moon dust has sold for 1.8 million US dollars (£1.38 million) at auction.
The collection bag, sold at a Sotheby’s auction of items related to space voyages, was used by Armstrong during the first manned mission to the moon in 1969.
The artefact from the Apollo 11 mission had been misidentified and sold in an online government auction and Nasa had fought to get it back.
But in December a federal judge ruled that the 12in by 8½in (30cm by 20cm) bag legally belonged to a Chicago-area woman who bought it in 2015 for 995 US dollars (£767).
Nancy Carlson, from Illinois, got an ordinary-looking bag made of white Beta cloth and polyester with rubberised nylon and a brass zip.
Carlson, who is a collector, knew the bag had been used in a space flight but she did not know which one. She sent it to Nasa for testing and the US space agency fought to keep it after discovering its importance.
But US District Judge J Thomas Marten said that while it should not have been put up for auction, he did not have the authority to reverse the sale. He ordered the government to return it to Carlson.
The judge said the importance and desirability of the bag stemmed solely from the efforts of Nasa employees whose “amazing technical achievements, skill and courage in landing astronauts on the moon and returning them safely have not been replicated in the almost half a century since the Apollo 11 landing”.
The buyer declined to be identified.
