Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and other Rare Meteorites

This wedge section formed on the lunar surface and is composed of different fragments of rocks and minerals cemented together by lunar soil and other crushed rock. The cut faces of this stone reveal a galaxy of inclusions, the result of the ongoing bombardment of the Moon’s surface by meteorite impacts prior to the collision responsible for launching this rock to Earth. The reverse reveals the meteorite’s exterior surface including patches of red from the Sahara aesthetically interspersed between the dark regolith and bright white anorthite with a slight natural desert varnish. As one would expect, many of the Apollo mission samples returned to Earth are nearly identical to lunar meteorites, and such is the case with this specimen.
64 x 44 x 27 mm. (2½ x 1¾ x 1 in.) and 139.4 g. (⅓ lbs)

Blasted off the lunar surface following an asteroid impact. Rocks from the Moon are among the rarest substances on Earth, and now offered is a sectional wedge of one such rock. There are less than 350 kg. of lunar meteorites known to exist and a significant fraction is controlled by governmental institutions. Moon rocks are identified by specific textural, mineralogical, chemical and isotopic signatures. Many of the common minerals found on Earth’s surface are rare on the Moon and some lunar minerals are unknown on Earth. In addition, Moon rocks contain gases captured from the solar wind with isotope ratios very different from the same gases found on Earth. NWA 10309 is the 10,309th rock recovered in the Northwest African grid of the Sahara Desert to be analyzed and classified. The single 1.2-kilogram stone from which this section is derived is a breccia composed mainly of very fine-grained minerals and a few much larger grains of anorthite (a calcium-aluminum silicate mineral present in most Moon rocks). This lunar sample was classified by Dr. Anthony Irving, one of the world’s foremost classifiers of planetary material.

The official classification of this lunar meteorite appears in the 104th edition of the Meteoritical Bulletin. The write-up was done by the world’s most renowned classifier of lunar meteorites, Dr. Anthony Irving, and a copy of the abstract and the write-up accompanies this offering.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalog note.