For those looking for an accessory that is a little out of the world, an auction house offers an extraordinary offering: meteorites.
In an online sale, Christie’s auction house offers a portfolio of celestial objects, including monsters that come from the moon and Mars, as well as aesthetic iron meteorites and rocks that contain gems.
Meteorites are small natural objects from space that survive their passage through the earth’s atmosphere and land on the surface – and while some of the monsters are housed in museums, 75 of them will be sold this month as part of ‘Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and other rare meteorites’ auction.
Among the collection is a statue made up of 7-billion-year-old stellar dust – an oriented rock meteorite that found its way to Earth in an unusual way.
The auction contains this specimen, which contains gemstones valued at $ 3,500 – $ 4,500, from Xinjiang. Credit: Christie’s
Unlike most other meteorites, it did not tumble or reverse when it fell on the ground, but according to Christie’s kept a stable orientation. The stone, which is estimated to weigh $ 50,000-80,000, weighs almost 16 pounds and has distinctive, diverse marks on the side facing the earth.
For sale is also a sphere from the meteorite core of a crushed Swedish asteroid. Credit: Christie’s
“Everyone has an image in mind of what a meteorite should” look like “- an extraterrestrial body that is frictionally heated as it strikes through the Earth’s atmosphere,” said James Hyslop, head of science and natural history at Christie’s. “Rarely do the objects survive this fiery descent like the shared ideal seen in this meteorite,” he added.
A Gibeon meteorite for sale for an estimated $ 15,000 – $ 25,000 Credit: Christie’s
For sale is also a cross-section of the Mars rock, with bubbles of the planet’s atmosphere trapped in the cut, estimated at $ 30,000-50,000. Auctioneers also offer a copy of meteorite from the largest U.S. meteor shower in Odessa, Texas, which auctioneers expect to fetch $ 60,000, as well as an atmosphere formed from the meteoric core of a crushed Swedish asteroid, which can sell for $ 18,000.
But not all items have astronomical prices – some of the overseas items have a $ 250 reserve mark for the auction, which starts on February 9th.