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An extremely rare lunar meteorite – composed of six fragments that fit together like a puzzle – was sold for $ 612,500, according to the American company RR Auction.
The meteorite is classified as NWA 11789 Lunar Feldspathic Breccia, known unofficially as "Buagaba" or "The Moon's Puzzle".
Discovered last year, it was projected on the surface of the Moon in the distant past, probably by the impact of a different meteorite.
He then traveled 400,000 kilometers on Earth and, against all odds, survived a fiery descent into the atmosphere in the deserts of northwestern Africa.
It is composed of six fragments that fit together, like a puzzle, to form a mass of nearly 5.5 kg. With a partial melting crust visible on one side, it is a brand new ranking and the biggest complete and lunar puzzle known.
According to RR Auction, it is one of the largest meteorites available for acquisition in the world and perhaps the most significant example of our closest celestial neighbor ever offered for sale in the world. history of meteorite science.
"The winning bid came from a representative of the Tam Chuc pagoda complex, located in Vietnam's Ha Nam province," RR Auction officials said in a statement.
"We are extremely pleased and delighted that this magnificent lunar meteorite is proudly on display in this magnificent facility – and this" Moon Puzzle "will certainly inspire science students for generations to come," they said.
When meteorites are discovered in remote areas of the Northwest African deserts, far from any known agglomeration or geographical features, this type of numerical designation is often attributed to them by academia.
Sometimes nomads or meteorite hunters find additional examples of an existing NWA meteorite at a later date. Subsequent discoveries may be reviewed and classified by a different expert and assigned a new name or number.
The researchers therefore sometimes discovered that there were two or more examples of the same meteorite known to science, but with different numbers. In such cases, they are called "twinned".
For example, NWA 2998 is associated with NWA 7262, which means that they are both likely examples of the same meteorite fall, but that they were recovered at different times.
A single or "unpaired" meteorite is more desirable for collectors and perhaps more useful for science, especially in the rare cases where the only discovery is a very large stone.
Such is the case of Buagba, or NWA 11789: there is no known pairing and is the only example of this meteorite.
Considering that the average size of a lunar meteorite discovery is a few hundred grams, the magnitude of this offer is really impressive, according to RR Auction.
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