A unique piece of space exploration history has found a new home at Metro High School. An American sycamore tree, whose seed traveled around the moon aboard NASA’s Artemis 1 mission, was recently planted on the school grounds.

The tree began its extraordinary journey as one of over 1,000 seeds sent into space as part of NASA’s Artemis 1 mission in late 2022. The seeds traveled 270,000 miles on the uncrewed Orion spacecraft, orbiting the moon several times and spending 25 days in space. Back on Earth, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service oversaw the germination and growth of the seeds into seedlings. Over 2,000 applications were submitted to receive one of these historic moon trees, with Metro High School being one of the fifty chosen nationwide by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement.

The idea for the Artemis 1 moon trees project came from a similar project during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. At that time, astronaut Stuart Roosa carried hundreds of tree seeds on his mission into space. Only about 70 of these original moon trees exist across the United States today.

The Metro staff planted the tree outside the school on Thursday, May 30th, as part of the school’s 50th Anniversary Event.