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Space buffs will have the chance to own three small particles of lunar matter when what Sotheby's describes as the only "moon rocks" known and legally available for private property was announced at auction in November .
Sotheby's announced on Tuesday that he hoped the fragments, salvaged from the moon by a Soviet space mission in 1970, could bring in between $ 700,000 and $ 1 million at the auction in New York on the 29th. November.
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 said in a statement that they had been 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 in x 2 mm) to 0.039 in x 0.039 in (1 x 1 mm), were presented as a gift on behalf of the Soviet Union in recognition of: the contributions of his late husband to the program.
Sotheby's stated that the particles, covered with a Russian plate and covered with a glass plate under glass, are both the only known lunar specimen to have been officially offered to a private party and documented provenance available at private property.
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 and used by Neil Armstrong for the first human mission on the moon in 1969 , priced at $ 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 remain with the two entities that collected them: the United States during Apollo missions 11-17 and the Soviet Union via unmanned missions Luna-16, Luna-20 and Luna-24.
A number of other countries have received samples of Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 business from the Nixon administration and, in most countries, the law prohibits the transfer of such gifts to individuals.
Particles sold in November were recovered in September 1970 by Luna-16, who drilled a hole in the surface to a depth of 13.8 inches (35 cm) and extracted a central sample.
They are packed under glass under an adjustable lens and labeled "АСТИЦЫ ГРУНТА ЛУНЫ-16" [SOIL PARTICLES FROM LUNA-16]. "
Tests on similar samples showed that the bits dated back to 3.4 billion years ago.
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