In 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell threw a metal pole like a javelin on the moon: it still lies near one of Shepard's golf balls

If you had a friend on the moon, what would you do together? Edgar Mitchell picked the least scientific answer possible. In February of 1971, at the end of his second and last moonwalk, he grabbed a long metal pole used for a solar-wind experiment and threw it like a javelin across the lunar surface. NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day says that pole is still in a shallow crater near a rock dubbed Turtle Rock, close to one of the golf balls his crewmate Alan Shepard had hit earlier that same day. Decades later, the two objects remain frozen in place, untouched, in a world with no wind or rain.

A crew that landed with a little fun in mind

Antares, the Apollo 14 lunar module, landed in the highlands of Fra Mauro on February 5, 1971, with commander Alan Shepard and the lunar module pilot, Edgar Mitchell, aboard, while the command module pilot, Stuart Roosa, remained in orbit. As recorded by John Uri in an article for NASA History, the crew brought back 93 pounds of rocks and soil from two moonwalks that lasted over nine hours total, which, at the time, was a record for the program before later missions surpassed it. However, as soon as the packing of samples was almost over, just before the end of the second moonwalk, the astronauts found themselves some time to spare.

The javelin throw nobody expected

Mitchell had just completed his work on the Solar Wind Composition experiment, which entailed using a pole-mounted foil strip to capture particles emanating from the sun. After the 21-hour experiment period ended, Mitchell treated the pole like a stick and, according to NASA, threw it like a javelin into the same small crater near one of Shepard's golf balls. It wasn't an experiment at all; it was a person testing out his arm strength in one-sixth gravity conditions, while being watched by millions of people on Earth.

Shepard’s improvised six-iron shot

Shepard's trick was more deliberate. He had secretly packed the head of a six-iron and affixed it to the handle of a sample-collection tool, creating a makeshift golf club. He looked at the camera and dropped a golf ball, a familiar little white pellet. His first swing sliced it only a couple of feet sideways, and his second swing connected cleanly, sending the ball around 24 yards into a nearby crater, according to NASA, landing near where Mitchell's javelin would later come to rest. Then he dropped down a second ball. His first swing at it missed entirely, but his second swing sent it sailing, and he called out that it had gone miles and miles. The second ball actually traveled about 40 yards in a different direction, according to a United States Golf Association analysis of remastered mission photographs.

Two photographs, one forgotten scene

Before taking off, Mitchell took pictures of the site from inside Antares and managed to capture the javelin along with the nearer of Shepard's golf balls lying close together within the crater beneath the rock known as Turtle Rock, which measures roughly 1.5 meters across. Some of those images were later merged into the detailed panorama NASA offered as its Astronomy Picture of the Day, edited by Apollo Lunar Surface Journal editor Eric M. Jones. The journal comprises hours of recorded conversation with the astronauts and remains to this day one of the most detailed accounts of what actually went on the moon during these missions.

Why this tiny detail still matters

There is no wind on the moon to move the pole. There won't be any rain washing it away, and with nobody having gone to that particular location of Fra Mauro since 1971, it is almost certain that the pole thrown by Mitchell is lying exactly in the place it fell, just a few feet away from Shepard's ball, in an entirely undisturbed part of another world. This small moment shows the astronauts were still human. After hours of fieldwork in clumsy suits, they were exhausted but still found a minute for some fun before sealing the hatch and heading home. That small detail makes the moon landing feel unexpectedly human.