In addition to great technological breakthroughs benefiting our everyday lives on Earth, the Apollo missions to the moon yielded volumes of data. Only some of the more significant findings can be presented here.

The moon is not primordial, it is an evolved terrestrial body. It is an ancient body, its early history (the first billion years) is preserved. Evidence has been found to support wholesale primordial melting, the formation of outer 'magma ocean' as lunar rocks still show traces of large scale chemical separations within the moon. The dark lunar maria (the seas) are made of chemically and mineralogically different rocks than the light colored highlands. The moon is chemically similar to earth, but it is also significantly different in details.

The moon is not uniform throughout, it is divided (like the Earth) into an outer crust, an inner mantle, and possibly a small metal core. The moon is globally asymmetric having a thicker crust on the far side. There is no magnetic field but 'fossil' magnetism is preserved in the lunar rocks. There are unexplained nitrogen abnormalities detected in the ancient solar wind trapped in the lunar regolith.

Scientists now believe that the moon was formed as a result of a collision between the Earth and another object about 4.6 billion years ago. The giant impact sprayed vaporized material into a disk that orbited the Earth, this vapor later cooled into droplets that coagulated into the moon.