Solved: the case of the missing moon dust.

The United States attorney’s office for eastern Missouri announced Thursday that it had recovered government property stolen more than 40 years ago: a triangular nub of transparent tape an eighth of an inch wide.

Unlike most missing office supplies, this tape was speckled with moon dust brought back by the Apollo 11 astronauts....

The item turned up last month at Regency-Superior, an auction house in St. Louis. The woman who put it up for sale, whose name was not released, told the authorities that her late husband had bought it some years earlier. When she learned of its history, she “immediately and graciously agreed to relinquish it back to the American people,” Mr. Callahan’s office said....