Lot 875
Chelyabinsk 39.6 Gram Meteorite from the Largest Meteorite Fall Since 1907. At 9:20 A.M. on the morning of February 15, 2013 a large 8-10 ton 50 foot long meteor exploded 10-15 miles above the ancient city of Chelyabinsk, Russia with the force of over 500,000 tons of TNT-- 10 times the force of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. More than 1,500 people were injured from flying glass and debris from the resulting shock wave. This was the largest meteor event in the last 100 years, since a large meteor exploded over a remote area of Siberia in 1907. Because of the immense explosion and ablation through Earth's atmosphere, most of the meteor was either burned up or blasted into a fine powder. More than 95% of the recovered meteorites are extremely small, less than 3 grams in weight.
This beautiful fresh stony 45x25x15 mm complete specimen weighs 39.6 grams, which is much larger than the vast majority recovered. It has a fresh dark brown fusion crust covering more than 95% of the meteorite, with a small viewing window inside of the meteorite showing its light gray matrix mixed with a large iron rich orange chondrule and other various shaped chondrules. This stony chondrite is designated as LL5 SR4, meaning that it is of low iron even for a stony meteorite, with the total iron content about 10 percent. It is not possible to obtain a fresher meteorite and it is very valuable for study in that there has been no contamination with Earth rocks and erosion. It comes housed in an 8x6 inch Riker mount with a photo of the explosion. Estimate Value $650 - UP
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