.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This end piece is of a Moon rock that landed on Earth after ejection from the lunar surface following an asteroid impact. There are only 275 kilograms (600 pounds) of lunar meteorites known to exist—with a significant fraction held in institutional colections—and they would all fit in two large suitcases. Lunar meteorites are identified by specific mineralogical, chemical, textural and radiation signatures. The Moon is among the rarest substances on Earth. Many common minerals found on Earth’s surface are rare on the Moon and some lunar minerals are unknown on Earth. In addition, Moon rocks contain gases captured from the solar wind with isotope ratios that are very different from the same gases found on Earth. While Apollo astronauts returned with less than 400 kg of Moon rocks, not one milligram is available to collectors.
North West Africa (NWA) 10309—the 10,309th meteorite to be recovered and classified from the North West African grid of the Sahara Desert—was discovered in 2015. The meteorite from which this sample originated was classified by one of the world’s foremost classifier’s of planetary material, and his work was vetted by a panel of scientists on the Meteoritical Society’s Nomenclature Committee prior to being assigned a name and published in the Meteoritical Bulletin. As described by the classifier, Dr. Anthony Irving, this is a feldspathic breccia composed of anorthite, pigeonite orthopyroxene and augite in a fine-grained matrix containing kamacite, troilite and taenite—the latter group providing incontrovertible evidence, the smoking gun, of an iron asteroid impact on the lunar surface, and possibly the very asteroid that ejected this material off the Moon into interplanetary space.
North West Africa (NWA) 10309—the 10,309th meteorite to be recovered and classified from the North West African grid of the Sahara Desert—was discovered in 2015. The meteorite from which this sample originated was classified by one of the world’s foremost classifier’s of planetary material, and his work was vetted by a panel of scientists on the Meteoritical Society’s Nomenclature Committee prior to being assigned a name and published in the Meteoritical Bulletin. As described by the classifier, Dr. Anthony Irving, this is a feldspathic breccia composed of anorthite, pigeonite orthopyroxene and augite in a fine-grained matrix containing kamacite, troilite and taenite—the latter group providing incontrovertible evidence, the smoking gun, of an iron asteroid impact on the lunar surface, and possibly the very asteroid that ejected this material off the Moon into interplanetary space.