Iron, fine octahedrite Gibeon, Great Nama Land, Namibia

Gibeon meteorites originated 4½ billion years ago from the core of a planetary-like body located between Mars and Jupiter whose shattered remains are part of the asteroid belt. An impact event ejected what was to become the Gibeon mass into interplanetary space, and Gibeon meteorites are the bounty that occurred thousands of years ago when the wandering iron mass slammed into Earth’s atmosphere before exploding and raining down in what is now the Kalahari Desert in Namibia. In previous generations, indigenous tribesmen recovered the smallest meteorite shards and fashioned them into spear points and other tools. The final shape of this specimen is the product of a fortuitous combination of variables including its composition, the soil chemistry, its orientation in the ground and the amount of groundwater to which it was exposed—all of which slowly reshaped this mass as it sat near the Earth’s surface as the seasons turned over thousands of years. In effect, this meteorite was hewn by monumental forces encountered in space, superheating upon entering Earth’s atmosphere and the effects of Earth’s elements. While the vast majority of iron meteorites are prosaically shaped, that is not the case as it regards this engaging 4½ billion year old otherworldly form, a tabletop sculpture from outer space.