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The Moon, lunar feldspathic breccia
Sahara Desert, Mauritania
51 mm (2 inches) in diameter
207.6 grams (0.45 lbs)
Similar to the previous lot but larger. The Moon is among the rarest objects on Earth; every single bit could fit in the back of a pickup truck. Scientists are readily able to identify Moon rocks by analyzing a rock's texture, mineralogy, chemistry and isotopic signatures. This specimen is also nearly identical to some of the material returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts.
In 2017, a large fraction of all lunar meteorites known was found in a Northwest African strewn field near the border region of Mauritania and Algeria. The weight of all lunar meteorites known to exist doubled at that time — and it’s only due to the relatively large amount of NWA 12691 that the possibility of rendering spheres exists.
To explain, the conservatorship of one of the rarest substances known is critical and to create a sphere, rocks far more massive than the final sphere are required in the sphere-making process due to the trimming and grinding involved. There is an insufficient amount of material from other lunar samples other than NWA 12691 to experience such material loss in the fabrication of spheres, and it may be decades before another lunar meteorite with a sufficiently high total known weight will be found to provide the possibility of additional spheres. This sphere, like the previous example, was fashioned by artisan Martin Roberts, a master sphere fabricator and protégé of the late Dr. Robert Ritchie, author of the standard source “The Sphere Maker’s Craft."
For scientists to accurately identify and distinguish individual meteorites, a standardized nomenclature system is necessary. A committee of scientists on the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society typically name meteorites by the location where they are discovered, such as a city, village, mountain, valley, river, or county. However, in deserts where recognizable geographic features are absent, meteorites are named according to a designated grid covering a specific area and are then assigned a sequential number. So, NWA 12691, for example, is the 12,691st meteorite catalogued after being recovered from the Northwest African grid (NWA) of the Sahara Desert.
All NWA 12691 samples are composed of fragments of olivine, pigeonite, augite, ilmenite and signature white anorthite naturally cemented together by a melt of lunar regolith and other crushed rock. NWA 12691 is a quintessential lunar breccia — fragments of different lunar materials naturally 'cemented' together as a result of the pressure and heat from repeated impacts on the lunar surface. It was one such impact which ejected the rock from which this sphere was made off the lunar surface into space before it landed on Earth.
Now offered is an exceedingly limited and captivating presentation of the Moon.
Provenance: Dr. Lawrence Stifler Collection of Meteorites, Brookline, MA.
The analysis of this meteorite was conducted by Dr. Anthony Irving. The classification was published in the 108th edition of the Meteoritical Bulletin — the official registry of meteorites — which accompanies this offering.
