Extraterrestrial Iron Meteorite Sphere

About the Item

Aletai Meteorite Sphere Iron - IIIE circa 4.5 Billion years old A perfect metallic sphere, extracted from the core of the famous Aletai Meteorite, discovered in China’s far north-western province of Xinjiang. This sample allows a three dimensional view of the Meteorite’s interior crystalline matrix, chiefly formed of interweaving bands of two iron-nickel alloys, taenite and kamacite - the latter of which is unique to Meteorite specimens, and found nowhere else on earth. The Aletai Meteorite is of particular scientific interest because of its unique chemical profile - it belongs to the rarest category of iron meteorites, IIIE, of which there are only 16 members on record. Of these, it is one of only two which have notably anomalous make-ups, containing the largest amount of gold of any specimen in the group, as well as considerable quantities of schreibersite, a rare phosphate mineral, (which gives Aletai samples their distinctive lustrous finish) first brought to our planet by meteorites billions of years ago, and thought to be the source of the reactive phosphorus that created the necessary conditions for the very beginnings of life on Earth. Additionally, Aletai’s impact was among the most dramatic of all known meteorites, its stone-skipping like trajectory producing the largest recorded strewn field in history, with fragments of the original parent body, blasted apart by thermal shock as it entered the atmosphere, scattered across an expanse that spans some 267 miles. One of these masses, lodged in the foothills of Inner Mongolia’s Altai Mountains, appears to have been known to the Russian painter Nicholas Roerich, who had visited Mongolia in the 1920s and 30s, and has been suggested to have inspired the ‘sacred stone’ that features in his early designs for the staging of the 1948 ballet performance of Stravinsky’s, ‘The Rite of Spring’, in which its jagged Silhouette, like a crashed spaceship, pokes half-buried out of the grassy hills. ‘‘While the intelligent man no longer regards the stone as a god, he is convinced that it is a messenger from space, a patient and even reverential study of which will disclose to him not a few of the secrets of the universe.’’ Oliver C. Farringdon, 1990 Weight: 1058 g Diameter: 2.51 inches Height on stand: 4.72 inches Literature: Meteoritika, Volume 22, 1962. Meteoritical Bulletin, no. 105, MAPS 52, 2411, September 2017. Provenance: Discovered in Xinjiang Province, China.

Dimensions:

Height: 2.51 in (6.38 cm)Diameter: 2.51 in (6.38 cm)

Materials and Techniques:

Other

Place of Origin:

China

Period:

15th Century and Earlier

Date of Manufacture:

circa 4.5 Billion Years Old

Condition:

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