A new investigation into the disappearance of 184 moon rock segments from the US Apollo 11 and 17 missions 43 and 40 years ago has claimed one of the valuable items may be lost inside Dublin’s Dunsink dump — a facility better known as a graveyard for useless items and used nappies.

The BBC has reported that, as part of a major public relations exercise, then president Richard Nixon sent pieces of the rocks to all US states and 135 foreign nations, including Ireland, following the return of what would be the final moon landing mission.

A piece of the Irish rock was placed in the Dunsink Observatory for safe-keeping. However, after a serious fire destroyed the facility on Oct 3, 1977, the item was lost.

While other segments are also based at the Natural History Museum and UCD’s Geology Department, on loan from Nasa, it is now believed the missing Dunsink piece may be hidden beneath almost four decades of rubbish.

And although the item itself is small, the fact previous segments have gone on sale for prices between tens of thousands of euro and €3.8m has led to significant interest in the claim.

The BBC revelation is based on the views of Dr Ian Elliot, who worked at observatory at the time of the 1977 fire and said “it was gathered up with all of the other debris and dumped in the municipal dump, which was conveniently just across the road”.

“It was only afterwards that we realised that the bit of moon rock could not be found. If we’d had any perception of the rock’s value, perhaps all of the debris would have been sifted by archaeologists and it might have been found.

“It is a very big dump, I am afraid. It is worse than a needle in a haystack — you would never find it,” he said.

While former Nasa agent and Texas-based lawyer, Joseph Gunthienz Junior, supports the story, stating that the Dunsink moon rock “is under a couple of tonnes of trash”, the actual value of the item has been questioned.

Different sized moon rocks from Honduras and Russia have previously been offered for sale to black market collectors for between €280,000 and €3.8m — with admittedly varying degrees of success.

However, Tom Ray, professor in astrophysics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, said would-be rubbish hunters should not expect a similar windfall.

“I saw the Apollo rock a long time ago at the observatory... The chances of recovering it after the fire were zilch. It is a tiny spec,” he said.