The founder of Amazon has found what are believed to be two engines from Apollo 11, the first human-run U.S. moon mission.
The identification of the discovery came only days before the 44th anniversary of the 1969 lunar landing, CNN reported.
"44 years ago tomorrow Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, and now we have recovered a critical technological marvel that made it all possible," Jeff Bezos, who made the discovery, wrote on his blog.
A conservator at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Station was able to make the historical connection.
"One of the conservators who was scanning the objects with a black light and a special lens filter has made a breakthrough discovery - '2044' - stenciled in black paint on the side of one of the massive thrust chambers. 2044 is the Rocketdyne serial number that correlates to NASA number 6044, which is the serial number for F-1 Engine #5 from Apollo 11," Bezos wrote.
The engines were first discovered in March off the coast of Florida in 14,000-feet deep water.
Bezos described the site as "an underwater wonderland - an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines."
The Amazon CEO and founder had been on a mission to find those very same rockets, but was having a hard time because the serial numbers on most artifacts were partially missing.
"The components' fiery end and heavy corrosion from 43 years underwater removed or covered up most of the original serial numbers," Bezos wrote.
The engines belonged to the Saturn V rocket, which carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon.
The nine-ton engines lifted the rocket 38 miles into the air before plummeting back down into the ocean at 5,000 miles per hour.
Bezos plans to put the decades-old equipment on display, in hopes that "just maybe it will inspire something amazing."
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