Lunar Meteorites
These are some of the Rarest meteorites available, often selling for as much as $3000 per gram.
Lunar meteorites provide you with a chance to actually touch a part of the moon, something very few people have ever done.
There are currently only 44 known Lunar meteorites.
(Photo used with the permission of Jeff Krosschell, the owner of this awesome piece)
NWA 5000
Name: Northwest Africa 5000
Classification: Achondrite (lunar, feldspathic breccia)
Year found: 2007
Country: Morocco
TKW: 11.53 kg
History: Found in July 2007 in southern Morocco and provided to Adam Hupé in October 2007.
Physical characteristics: A single, large cuboidal stone (11.528 kg) with approximate dimensions 27 cm × 24 cm × 20 cm. One side (which appears to have been embedded downward in light brown mud) has preserved regmaglypts and is partially covered by translucent, pale greenish fusion crust with fine contraction cracks. Abundant large beige to white, coarse-grained clasts up to 8 cm across (some of which have been eroded out on exterior surfaces of the stone, likely by eolian sand blasting) and sparse black, vitreous clasts up to 2 cm across (containing irregular small white inclusions) are set in a dark gray to black, partially glassy breccia matrix. One partially eroded clast exposed on an exterior surface contains both the coarse grained beige lithology and the more resistant black, vitreous lithology in sharp contact.
Petrography: (A. Irving and S. Kuehner, UWS) Almost monomict fragmental breccia dominated by Mg-suite olivine gabbro clasts consisting predominantly of coarse-grained (0.5-2 mm) calcic plagioclase, pigeonite (some with fine exsolution lamellae), and olivine with accessory merrillite, Mg-bearing ilmenite, Ti-bearing chromite, baddeleyite, rare zirconolite, silica polymorph, K-feldspar, kamacite, and troilite. Some gabbro clasts have shock injection veins composed mostly of glass containing myriad fine troilite blebs and engulfed mineral fragments. Black, vitreous impact melt clasts consist of sporadic, small angular fragments (apparently surviving relics) of gabbro and related mineral phases in a very fine grained, non-vesicular, ophitic-textured matrix of pigeonite laths (up to 20 microns long × 2 microns wide) and interstitial plagioclase with tiny spherical grains of kamacite, irregular grains of schreibersite and rare troilite.
Geochemistry: Gabbro clasts: plagioclase (An96.1-98.0Or<0.1), pigeonite (Fs32.0-64.5Wo6.7-13.1; FeO/MnO = 51.1-62.0), olivine in different clasts range from Fa23.9-24.2, Fa40.4 to Fa58.8 (with FeO/MnO = 81-100), chromite [(Cr/(Cr + Al) = 0.737, Mg/(Mg + Fe) = 0.231, TiO2 = 5.9 wt%], ilmenite (4.1 wt% MgO). Bulk composition: (R. Korotev, WUSL) INAA of 6 subsamples gave mean values of 5.3 wt% FeO and 0.4 ppm Th.
Classification: Achondrite (lunar, feldspathic breccia). Specimens: A total of 40.2 g of sample, two polished mounts and one large polished thin section are on deposit at UWS. AHupé hold the main mass.
Submitted by: A. Irving, UWS.
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NWA 5000 was found in July of 2007 in sourthern Morocco and has a total known weight of 11.53 kg and is the largest Lunar meteorite ever found.
Here are a few samples currently available for sale of this outstanding Lunar meteorite.
.1 gram fragment - SOLD
.2 gram fragment - SOLD
.25 gram corner slice with free iron inclusion - NOT FOR SALE
