Fifth largest piece of moon on Earth up for sale at $2.5 Million
New Delhi : One of the world's largest lunar meteorites is up for sale at Christie's at a whopping price tag of 2 million pounds (2.5 million dollars approx.).
The piece of rock from the moon weighs around 13.5 kgs and is equivalent to the size of football.
The rock had probable struck off the surface of the moon by a collision with an asteroid or comet and then showered down on the Sahara desert.
Named as NWA 12691, it happens to be the fifth largest piece of moon rocks in the available 650 kg pieces on earth.
"The experience of holding a piece of another world in your hands is something you never forget," said James Hyslop, Christie's head of science and natural history.
"It is an actual piece of the moon. It is about the size of a football, a bit more oblong than that, larger than your head."
It was found by an anonymous man in the Sahara desert and then after being tested by the scientists it has been confirmed that the piece belongs to the moon. They compared it with the sample brought from moon by the NASA's Apollo Mission.
"In the 1960s and 1970s the Apollo programme brought back about 400 kilograms of moon rock with them and scientists have been able to analyse the chemical and isotopic compositions of those rocks and they have determined that they match certain meteorites," said Hyslop.
