The Apollo 12 astronauts excised several components of Surveyor 3, including the television camera, and returned them to Earth for study.

[2] As Surveyor 3 was landing in the crater[3][4] highly reflective rocks confused the spacecraft's lunar descent radar.

The engines failed to cut off at 14 feet (4.3 meters) in altitude as called for in the mission plans, and this delay caused the lander to bounce on the lunar surface twice.

Samples of soil from the trenches were placed in front of the Surveyor's television cameras to be photographed and the pictures radioed back to the Earth.

At the next lunar dawn (after 14 terrestrial days, or about 336 hours), Surveyor 3 could not be reactivated, because of the extremely cold temperatures that it had experienced.

Landing within walking distance on November 19, 1969, the astronauts took several pictures of the probe and removed a scoop from the probe's soil mechanics-surface sampler, a section of unpainted aluminum tube from a strut supporting the Surveyor's radar altimeter and Doppler velocity sensor, another section of aluminum tube that was coated with inorganic white paint and a segment of television cable wrapped in aluminized plastic film and the Surveyor 3's television camera which were returned to Earth.

Astronauts Conrad and Bean examined the spacecraft, and they brought back about 22 pounds (10 kg) of parts of the Surveyor to the Earth, including its TV camera, which is now on permanent display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Analysis of the camera found that it withstood 947 days in the vacuum of space, including 32 two-week lunar nights with temperatures dropping below −200 °F (−130 °C), in good condition.

The scoop was mounted on a pantograph arm that could be extended about 5 feet (1.5 m) or retracted close to the spacecraft motor drive.

Several components of the Surveyor 3 lander were collected and returned to the Earth for study of the long-term exposure effects of the harsh lunar environment on human-made objects and materials.

[12] It is widely claimed that a common type of bacterium, Streptococcus mitis, accidentally contaminated the Surveyor's camera prior to launch, and that the bacteria survived dormant in the harsh lunar environment for two and a half years, supposedly then to be detected when Apollo 12 brought the Surveyor's camera back to the Earth.

[13] This claim has been cited by some as providing credence to the idea of interplanetary panspermia, but more importantly, it led NASA to adopt strict abiotic procedures for space probes to prevent contamination of the planet Mars and other astronomical bodies that are suspected of having conditions possibly suitable for life.

Most dramatically, the Galileo space probe was deliberately destroyed at the end of its mission by crashing it into Jupiter, to avoid the possibility of contaminating the Jovian moon Europa with bacteria from Earth.

[14][15] In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) photographed the Surveyor 3 landing site in some detail, in which surrounding astronaut foot tracks could also be seen.