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Sample of moon rocks from the Apollo 11 mission were found at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
CREDIT: Berkeley Lab - Roy Kaltschmidt

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Vials of moon dust brought back to Earth by the first men on the moon have been found inside a lab warehouse in California after sitting in storage unnoticed for more than 40 years.

The samples — collected by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin — were rediscovered last month by an archivist who was going over artifacts tucked away at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

"We don't know how or when they ended up in storage," Karen Nelson, who made the surprising discovery, said in a statement from the lab.