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Lunar Meteorite
About the Item
A beautiful fragment from a lunar meteorite, among the rarest of all geological finds. This specimen belongs to NWA 11303, a feldspathic regolith breccia which formed when the shock wave caused by an asteroid impact turned the fine-grained soil (or regolith) covering the surface of the lunar highlands into rock. Ejected from the Moon by the impact, it travelled hundreds of thousands of miles before falling to Earth. It then lay hidden among the sand dunes, blasted by the desert winds, before its discovery at a site near Tindouf, Algeria, in 2017. The dark grey stone has large white inclusions and a sand-polished, beautifully weathered desert patina. Cuts on one side to reveal a fine-grained matrix with diffuse large whitish to black clasts.
Many lunar surface samples were recovered during the Apollo missions. However, these could only be sampled from sites which were safe for humans and therefore only illustrate a small portion of the Moon’s surface. Lunar meteorites found on Earth offer a much better picture of the composition of the lunar surface, since they originate from many different areas of the Moon. The very first specimen was discovered on 17 January 1982, a decade after the last Apollo mission, and those recovered since have proved invaluable to the understanding of the history and geological evolution of the Moon. These lunar meteorites are extremely rare - when pairing together known specimens coming from the same meteoroid, only about a hundred are known.
Petrography:
(A. Irving and S. Kuehner, UWS) Breccia composed of angular mineral grains of anorthite, olivine, orthopyroxene, exsolved pigeonite, ferroan pigeonite, augite, ilmenite, Ti-chromite and fayalite in a partly vesicular matrix containing minor kamacite and barite.
Geochemistry:
Olivine (Fa26.7-47.2, FeO/MnO = 75-81, N = 2), orthopyroxene (Fs24.1Wo3.6, FeO/MnO = 67), orthopyroxene host (Fs47.1Wo3.3, FeO/MnO = 68), ferroan pigeonite (Fs52.4Wo18.8, FeO/MnO = 67), augite (Fs8.0Wo44.3, FeO/MnO = 35), plagioclase (An96.7-97.4Or0.2-0.1, N = 2).
Published:
Meteoritical Bulletin, no. 107, 2018.
- Dimensions:Height: 3.15 in (8 cm)Diameter: 2.96 in (7.5 cm)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:4.5 Billion y/o
- Condition:
- Seller Location:London, GB
- Reference Number:
About the Seller
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Associations
LAPADA - The Association of Arts & Antiques DealersInternational Confederation of Art and Antique Dealers' AssociationsThe British Antique Dealers' Association
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: London, United Kingdom
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
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