A Martian meteorite discovered in Africa is up for auctionA Martian rock that fell as a meteorite in Africa and was discovered by a professional meteorite hunter and is the largest such Mars rock found so far is about to go up for sale by auction.
NWA16788 is the largest known piece of Mars on Earth, and its internal composition suggests it was disgorged from the surface of the Red Planet by an asteroid impact so extreme that it turned some of the meteorite’s minerals into glass.
Looking certain to blow past its lower estimate of US$2.0 million, this monumental 54-lb (24.67-kg) lump of Mars has already been bid to $1,920,000 (inc Buyer’s Premium) 12 days before the on-line hammer falls, and even its $4-milllion upper estimate doesn’t look safe with this much interest so early in an online auction.
The expected high price is partly because of the meteorite’s size, and partly because almost such meteorites are found by scientists working for NASA, and are thus never made available for sale. To have one available for purchase is rare indeed.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
A Martian rock that fell as a meteorite in Africa and was discovered by a professional meteorite hunter and is the largest such Mars rock found so far is about to go up for sale by auction.
NWA16788 is the largest known piece of Mars on Earth, and its internal composition suggests it was disgorged from the surface of the Red Planet by an asteroid impact so extreme that it turned some of the meteorite’s minerals into glass.
Looking certain to blow past its lower estimate of US$2.0 million, this monumental 54-lb (24.67-kg) lump of Mars has already been bid to $1,920,000 (inc Buyer’s Premium) 12 days before the on-line hammer falls, and even its $4-milllion upper estimate doesn’t look safe with this much interest so early in an online auction.
The expected high price is partly because of the meteorite’s size, and partly because almost such meteorites are found by scientists working for NASA, and are thus never made available for sale. To have one available for purchase is rare indeed.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Jackson, did this Martian meteorite arrive from another planet?
Heh.
I got to sniff (in a very non-Biden-like way) a sliced iron meteorite. It had a very intense “blood” smell. Instantly realized I’d just inhaled iron atoms from space that are billions of years old. Then thought, but hey, the iron atoms in my own blood, and all the other atoms in me, are just as old, and also from space. It was a strangely moving experience.
Patrick–
Have an 8.23-gram slice of a stony iron-nickel meteorite from the Atacama Desert, retrieved in 1922.
“Olivine crystals embedded in a nickel-iron matrix.” About the size of a domino, on a platinum chain, highly polished. (Har–the only smell I ever noticed was my wife’s perfume!)
And a 3-gram “Olivine-Bronzite Chondrite” stony meteorite from Zacatecas, Mexico. Fell (sky burst) December 15, 1978, retrieved July 15th, 1979. Looks like a piece of roundish puffed black lava. With “excellent fusion-crust.”
Musk will probably buy it. Bring it back.
One of the saddest tales involved the fossil of “Sue” the T-Rex where some G-Men stuck guns in his face.
There is a movement afoot to raid museums.
Zahi Hawass, bane of the “aliens made the pyramids” nonsense—-made it a pet project to get Egyptian antiquities back home—only to have them raided after Mubarak fell.
Do NOT go to Egypt—-the horror stories I have heard.