This is what Neil Armstrong brought back with him from the moon

Shortly after her husband died in 2012, Neil Armstrong's widow, Carol, made an interesting discovery in the astronaut's closet: A bag from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, filled with 17 items he brought back from the moon.

Carol Armstrong quickly got in touch with the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, and the curator of the Apollo collection, Allan Needell, and his team quickly got to work on documenting what was inside the bag: Utility lights with power cables, a waist tether, netting, and a 16 mm movie data acquisition camera were among the findings, ABC News reports. The camera was used to film the moon landing and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's activities, including taking samples of soil and planting the flag.

Several non-essential items were left behind on the moon in order to bring back scientific samples like moon rocks and dust, but some things were smuggled back as souvenirs. "What many of the astronauts did once things were surplus and basically not required for science or other missions... certain items that astronauts have managed to keep as sort of personal momenta," Needell says. "I think probably it was unspoken tradition to do some of that."

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