Pupils at St Sampson’s School in Cricklade were able to touch the moon when they returned to school this term.

Pupils handled meteorites among the rare samples of moon rock and lunar dust that landed at the junior school.

Professor Keith Mason, who helped provide the rocks, said: “It’s incredible to think, that when you hold a meteorite, you are handling something that may have travelled millions of miles to fall on the Earth.

“Meteorites can tell us a great deal about the places where they originated.

“It’s amazing that almost 40 years after the lunar samples were collected, scientists are still not sure how the moon formed.”

The rocks, collected during NASA’s manned space missions, came from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.