One of the world’s largest lunar meteorites is now on sale at Christie’s and can be yours if you can fetch out a whopping $2.49 million.
The 13.5 kg of the moon surface was found in the Sahara Desert. It possibly stuck off the surface of the moon by a collision with an asteroid or comet and then happened to fall in the Sahara desert.
Named NWA 12691, it is the fifth known piece of the moon to be ever found on the earth. In total, Earth owns over 650 kgs of the moon in pieces.
“The experience of holding a piece of another world in your hands is something you never forget,” said James Hyslop, Christie’s head of science and natural history.
The rock is said to have completed a journey of 240,000 miles to happen on the earth. It was found by an anonymous finder and then later studied carefully. Scientists assured that it is from the moon after they compared it with rock samples brought back by the United States’ Apollo space missions to the moon.
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“In the 1960s and 1970s the Apollo programme brought back about 400 kilograms of moon rock with them and scientists have been able to analyse the chemical and isotopic compositions of those rocks and they have determined that they match certain meteorites,” said Hyslop.
Many meteorites make their way to the moon but only a handful reaches the earth escaping the heat that usually burns them down.
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“We are expecting huge international interest in it from natural history museums… it is a wonderful trophy for anyone who is interested in space history or lunar exploration” said the firm auctioning it.
