GIBEON METEORITE SPHERE — EXOTIC CRYSTAL BALL FROM OUTER SPACE - photo 1

GIBEON METEORITE SPHERE — EXOTIC CRYSTAL BALL FROM OUTER SPACE

Lot 11
23.02.2022 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
$ 18 900
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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Archive
ID 716396
Lot 11 | GIBEON METEORITE SPHERE — EXOTIC CRYSTAL BALL FROM OUTER SPACE
Estimate value
$ 4 000 – 6 000
As the vast majority of iron meteorites are prosaically shaped, an opportunity exists to showcase their internal crystalline splendor by fashioning slices, cubes and spheres. Gibeon meteorites originated 4.5 billion years ago from the molten core of an asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter whose shattered remains are part of the asteroid belt. An impact event ejected what was to become the Gibeon mass into interplanetary space where it traveled around the Sun for millions of years. Gibeon meteorites themselves are the bounty that occurred thousands of years ago when the wandering iron mass found itself on an Earth-crossing orbit and slammed into Earth’s atmosphere before exploding and raining down in what is now the Kalahari Desert in Namibia.

As the crystalline structure seen does not appear in terrestrial iron ores, its presence is diagnostic for iron meteorites, and pattern variations are frequently indicative of different meteorites. This latticework, referred to as a Widmanstätten pattern, is a product of the intergrowth of two different iron-nickel minerals: kamacite (a low-nickel variety) and taenite (a high-nickel variety).

When shaped into a sphere, Gibeon meteorites reveal in three dimensions their prominent crystalline fingerprint in a perspective not available when viewing a flat surface (see lot 53). And this sphere is more unusual still: an uncommon engagement of a ring of plessite (a very fine-grained mixture of kamacite and taenite) arcs across this sphere resulting in what is a singular crystal ball from outer space. Modern fashioning.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue.

59mm (2.33 in.) in diameter and 811.9g (1.75 lbs)
Category:Meteorite, Sphere
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
09.02.2022 – 23.02.2022
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
4FQ.AYGKAGLUQ@FO3G@
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