Through the middle of next week , outer space lovers with cash to part with can buy a 4.6 billion - year - old meteorite . As CNN report , Christie ’s auction house in New York is sell the uncommon rock as part of “ Deep Impact : Martian , Lunar and Other Rare Meteorites , ” anonline auctionthat will run until Wednesday , May 10 .
The ancient meteorite is a piece ofthe celebrated Allende meteorite , which set off over the Mexican state of Chihuahua in 1969 , scattering G of Stone in its Wake Island . scientist collect the fragment , or buy them from local residents , and come upon that they come from a very uncommon case of meteorite containing some of the world-wide scheme ’s old matter . Today , Allende is remembered as history ’s most authoritative — and studied — meteorite .
“ There are two fractured surfaces and one impertinently reduce face,”the Christie ’s listing reads . “ Fusion incrustation — the result of the meteorite ’s burning ancestry through the atmosphere — covers most of the specimen ’s control surface field . Chondrules and CAI’s — the oldest sum mankind can contact — are richly evident . ”
Bidding for the meteorite lead off at $ 20,000 . It ’s a hefty price to give for a piece of extraterrestrial account . But as Christie ’s specialist James Hyslop explain to CNN , high - caliber meteors like this one are very rare , so do n’t occur around too often .
Meteorites are the fragments of comet , asteroids or meteoroids , which hurtle through the atmosphere to Earth . They often eat away during their perfervid journey , so it ’s hard to find tidy ones with smooth , interesting shapes . The ones that are found typically wrap up in private appeal . ( The Allende meteorite is from the National Autonomous University of Mexico ’s collection . )
Age and scientific rarity also increase a meteorite ’s note value . In the Allende specimen ’s case , “ it ’s 4.56 billion years old , a number so astonishingly large that it almost lose all substance , ” Hyslop said . “ The way I ’ve set about to think about it is that the object is a third as old as time itself , which is really quite profound . ”
[ h / tCNN ]
