Campo del Cielo (“Valley of the Sky”) meteorites are the result of a cataclysmic collision between two asteroids traveling at cosmic velocity in interplanetary space. The fragments of the target asteroid were sent on a collision course with Earth.

The Campo del Cielo mass slammed into Earth’s atmosphere more than 4,000 years ago; the explosive fragmentation that followed resulted in thousands of meteorites raining to the ground in northeastern Argentina. The larger meteorites struck at such high velocity that an array of at least 26 impact craters formed, the largest, a football field across.

The meteorite offered here is somewhat more modestly sized. Surprisingly dense, it exhibits the finely stippled surface character of select Campo del Cielo meteorites. The deep charcoal patina with platinum-hued highlights follows the contours of its regmaglypts, small thumbprint-like indentations that result from a meteorite’s fiery plunge through Earth’s atmosphere. The bottom of the meteorite was cut to serve as a pedestal and to reveal the meteorite’s internal crystalline structure, a feature that’s diagnostic in the identification of an iron meteorite, which represent just 2% of all meteorites.

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.


128 x 88 x 75mm (5 x 3.5 x 3 in.) and 2,053g (4.5 lbs)