ID 716411
Лот 26 | ORIENTED MURCHISON METEORITE — 7-BILLION YEAR OLD STARDUST
Оценочная стоимость
$ 7 000 – 10 000
In the morning of September 28, 1969 — the same year Apollo 11 landed on the Moon — a meteorite shower occurred over the town of Murchison, Australia. The labs that had been set-up to study Moon rocks were suddenly tasked with additional work when Murchison’s aromatic odor was plainly noticeable. We now know that Murchison meteorites contain a variety of organic compounds including alcohols, aromatic hydrocarbons and fullerenes — the latter being a potential antiviral and anti-aging agent. And then there are its amino acids which can combine to form proteins — the building blocks of life. Murchison experienced chemical alteration by water-rich fluids on its parent asteroid prior to impacting Earth. Coveted by both scientists and collectors, the last several decades have seen specimens of Murchison becoming some of the most researched of meteorites with citations in scores of scientific papers. In 2010, an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences announced that 14,000 unique molecular compounds were identified in a small section of a Murchison specimen. This study by a team of nine German scientists further determined that many of these organic compounds were present in the solar system prior to when life commenced on Earth — which not only raises the question of whether meteorites played a key role in life's origins, but whether meteorites similar to Murchison may have seeded precursors of life in other solar systems as well.
This meteorite is blanketed in pristine fusion crust. It’s also oriented (i.e., it did not spin and tumble during its descent through the Earth’s atmosphere, but largely maintained the same axis of orientation) as ablation lipping, a telltale sign of orientation, is readily evident. Apart from the submicroscopic pre-solar grains, this meteorite contains calcium aluminum inclusions (CAIs) which were among the first particles to condense out of the gaseous solar nebula from which our solar system originated. CAIs are among the oldest samples of matter visible to the naked eye that humankind can touch. Now offered is an exceptional specimen from a scientifically notable meteorite shower.
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.
39 x 28 x 23mm (1.5 x 1 x 1 in.) and 41.18g (205 carats)
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