[ad_1]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Three lunar-matter lovers will have the chance to own three tiny particles of lunar matter when what Sotheby's describes as the only "moon rocks" known and legally available for private property has auctioned in November.
Three lunar samples, which according to Sotheby's are the only known and documented lunar rocks in private hands, from the 1970 Luna-16 unmanned Soviet mission that came back to Earth, are shown packed under a Adjustable glbad, in this photo taken in New York, United States, on October 15, 2018. Courtesy of Sotheby's & Handout via REUTERS
Sotheby's announced on Tuesday that the fragments, recovered from the moon by a Soviet space mission in 1970, could bring in between $ 700,000 to $ 1 million at the November 29 auction in New York.
The pieces – a fragment of basalt, similar to most volcanic rocks on Earth, and surface debris known as the regolith – are sold by an unidentified private American collector who bought them in 1993.
Sotheby's sa declared in a They were sold for the first time in 1993 by Nina Ivanovna Koroleva, widow of the former director of the Soviet space program Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.
The fragments, ranging in size from about 0.079 inches (2 x 2 mm) to 0.039 inches, 0.039 inches (1 x 1 mm), were given as gifts on behalf of the Soviet Union. in recognition of her late husband's contributions to the program.
According to Sotheby's, the particles, covered with a Russian plate and covered with a glbad plate, are both the only known lunar sample to have been officially offered to a private party and a documented provenance available for the property private.
Collectors pay huge sums for space exploration artifacts. Last year, Sotheby's sold a zipper bag with the inscription "Lunar Sample Return" covered with moon dust, which was used by Neil Armstrong for the first manned mission on the moon in 1969, at the price of $ 1.8 million.
This sale took place after NASA lost a legal battle to recover the artifact from a private collection.
Most of the other known samples taken from the Moon still belong to the two entities that collected them: the United States during the Apollo 11-17 missions and the Soviet Union via the unmanned Luna-16 missions, Luna-20 and Luna-24. .
A number of other countries have received samples of Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 business in the name of the Nixon administration and, in most places, the law prohibits transfer such gifts to individuals.
Particles sold in November were recovered in September 1970 by Luna-16, who drilled a hole in the surface at a depth of 13.8 inches (35 cm) and extracted a central sample.
They are packed under glbad under an adjustable lens and bearing the inscription "ЧАСТИЦЫ ГРУНТА ЛУНЫ-16" [SOIL PARTICLES FROM LUNA-16].
Tests on similar samples date back 3.4 billion years.
Edited by Jill Serjeant; Edition of Kim Coghill
Source link
