The piece of moon rock is on sale ar at .49 million or 2 million pounds. (Image: Christie Images Ltd)
What if you get to hold a piece of Moon in your hand? The feeling is astounding, isn’t it? Well, this can happen if you can spend $2.49 million. Christie, a firm that offers premier auctions and private sales of the finest art, antiques and interiors, and more, has put a piece of Moon rock on sale on Thursday.
“The experience of holding a piece of another world in your hands is something you never forget,” Christie’s head of science and natural history, James Hyslop said.
According to Reuters, the moon rock weighs 13.5 kg and was said to be stuck “off the surface of the moon by a collision with an asteroid or comet”. The piece later fell on the Earth. It straight landed in Sahara and was first found by an anonymous person. This isn’t the first time that a meteorite has been discovered in the Sahara. There have been many similar incidents in the past.
The piece of moon rock is on sale ar at $2.49 million or 2 million pounds. It is reportedly not the first time that a moon rock has landed on Earth. “Known as NWA 12691, it is thought to be the fifth largest piece of the moon ever found on earth. There is just 650 kg of moon rock known to be on earth,” the report noted.
Hyslop said that “It is an actual piece of the moon. It is about the size of a football, a bit more oblong than that, larger than your head.” “In the 1960s and 1970s the Apollo programme brought back about 400 kilograms of moon rock with them and scientists have been able to analyse the chemical and isotopic compositions of those rocks and they have determined that they match certain meteorites,” added Hyslop.
Hyslop further said that meteorites are extremely rare and only around “one in a thousand” comes from the moon. This makes the newly arrived moon rock very special.
He also said that scientists can be certain that the rock fell from the Moon as it has been compared with rock samples brought by the “United States’ Apollo space missions to the moon”.
“We are expecting huge international interest in it from natural history museums… it is a wonderful trophy for anyone who is interested in space history or lunar exploration,” Hyslop said.
(With inputs from Reuters)