You Can Buy a 4.5 Billion-Year-Old Meteorite at Christie’s Online Auction
Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and if you really want to make an impression on your loved one, how about gifting them with a genuine 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite in the shape of a heart?
Christie’s is hosting their fourth online-only auction of important and aesthetic meteorites. The auction features naturally sculpted metallic meteorites, as well as some of the oldest objects in the world. The iron and stone meteorites for sale have been formed by cosmic forces and their flight to Earth.
The specially curated selection boasts extremely rare meteorites that come from the surface of the Moon and the planet Mars, as well as a series of mesmerizing slices and spheres of the most exquisite meteorites in existence.
The one-of-kind heart-shaped meteorite selling at the Christie’s auction marks the latest chapter in the object’s history which started 4.5-billion years ago when it crashed through Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of over 30,000mph.
The rare meteorite landed in Russia on 12 February 1947, wreaking havoc over the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in Siberia. Zooming in at nearly nine miles per second, the bright fireball left a trail of thick smoke that could be seen by eye-witnesses from about 200 miles across.
Russian artist P.I. Medvedev was one of those eyewitnesses, and he later captured it in a painting that was reproduced as a mail stamp, issued in 1957 by the Soviet Union to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the event.
This heart-shaped specimen was one of the fragments recovered after the event, and until now, it has been carefully preserved.
Dubbed ‘The Heart of Space,’ this fine meteorite now makes up a special part of the Christie’s Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and other Rare Meteorites sale.
It is expected to sell for up to $500,000 at the auction, which will be held on February 6th and runs until Feb 14.
Other items for sale include “A Massive Dronino Meteorite and the estimated price is $50,000 — $80,000, a “Sculptural Odessa Meteorite” selling for $50,000 — $80,000, a “Massive Sculpture from Outer Space at a price of $40,000 — $60,000, “Entrapped Martian Atmosphere in Meteorite selling for $30,000 — $50,000, the “Canyon Diablo Meteorite from Meteor Crater — Large Select Individual” at an estimated price of $25,000 — $35,000, and the “End Piece of a Meteorite from the Moon selling for $25,000 — $35,000.
This sample is from the interface of the molten iron core and stony mantle of an asteroid that shattered following a collision with another asteroid. The metallic matrix is highly polished and the highly translucent olivine and peridot crystals range in hue from chartreuse to amber. Estimate : USD 3,000 — USD 5,000
These basins were most likely the result of cavities that grew after iron sulfide (troilite) inclusions weathered out of the meteorite as it sat underground in the Kalahari. Estimate: USD 20,000 — USD 30,000
Resembling an asteroid in miniature this rounded mass has a surface covered with the tell-tale thumbprints that result from atmospheric frictional heating. Estimate: USD 40,000 — USD 60,000
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