12-Pound Lunar Meteorite Sells For More Than $600,000
BOSTON (AP) — A 12-pound chunk of the moon that fell to the Earth as a lunar meteorite was sold at auction for more than $600,000.
Boston-based RR Auction announced Friday the $612,500 winning bid for the meteorite, composed of six fragments that fit together like a puzzle, came from a representative working with the Tam Chuc Pagoda complex in Ha Nam Province, Vietnam.
RR predicted it would get $500,000 at auction.
We are looking for instruments and systems that will fly to the Moon on commercial lunar landers as early as next year or 2020 to conduct research on the Moon's surface ahead of a human return to humanity's closest neighbor. Learn more: https://t.co/EbC5WDCqHA pic.twitter.com/X6nS5kpFoL
— NASA (@NASA) October 18, 2018
The meteorite was found last year in a remote area of Mauritania in northwest Africa.
It is considered one of the most significant lunar meteorites ever found because of its large size and because it has "partial fusion crust" caused by the tremendous heat that sears the rock as it falls to Earth.