An American Sweetgum "Moon Tree" has found its home at Western Carolina University after being selected by NASA’s Artemis I program earlier this semester, the school said.

After reviewing hundreds of applicants, NASA said it carefully selected organizations across the nation to have "Moon Tree" seedlings to plant in their community. These seedlings flew around the Moon on the Artemis I mission in 2022, NASA said.

Artemis I was the first in a series of missions to help make human exploration of the moon and Mars possible. The mission lasted just over 25 days and traveled 1.4 million miles, the agency said.

With these missions, NASA plans to explore more of the lunar surface to establish a long-term presence on the moon and eventually Mars.

NASA and the U.S. Forest Service helped distribute Moon Trees seedlings to new homes at schools, universities, libraries and community organizations across the country.

The agency said they chose these locations based on criteria that assessed their ability to care for the tree species and maximize educational opportunities around the life of the tree.

“We are the stewards of this little visitor from outer space who’s going to hang out with us for the next however many years and maybe someday have baby Moon Trees if we can germinate those,” said Amy Fagan, an associate professor at Western Carolina.

“I feel very honored that we were selected and that our department is going to be the caretakers,” she said.

Western Carolina hopes the Moon Tree will be used as an educational tool and benefit the region for decades to come.

“As the tree gets older, we have some ideas of how we can expand opportunities with the tree, but it’s going to probably take a few years before it’s big enough for us to do some of them,” Fagan said.