At 10:30 A.M. on 12 February 1947, the largest meteorite shower since the dawn of civilization occurred. A fireball, brighter than the sun, streaked over the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in eastern Siberia as it broke apart in the upper atmosphere. The main mass violently exploded at an altitude of six kilometers. The shock wave, which was felt 300 kilometers away, collapsed chimneys, shattered windows and uprooted trees. The 33 kilometer long swirling funnel-shaped smoke train left in the object’s wake lingered in the sky for hours. The snowy terrain was showered with more than 60 tons of material, impaling trees and creating dozens of craters in a largely uninhabited area. There are two types of Sikhote-Alin meteorites: twisted shrapnel-like fragments (the result of the last-minute explosion—see lot 15) and the more highly desired smooth, gently scalloped specimens which result from a longer solitary descent to Earth. This offering presents aspects of both characteristics. As evidenced on the reverse where it split along a crystalline plane, it was shorn from a larger mass. The melting and ablating briefly continued in the upper atmosphere and then abruptly ended when this meteorite hit terminal velocity and free fall, hence the “unfinished” texture now seen. In effect, the two sides of this meteorite present different events in its atmospheric entry, part of a larger event that observers likened to what seemed to be the end of the world.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalog note.