Similar to lots 10 and 21. In celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Sikhote Alin event on February 12th, now offered is a notable example from one of the largest meteorite showers of the last several thousand years and among the most terrifying meteorite showers of modern times. Its journey began 320 million years ago, when a giant iron mass broke-off from its parent body in the asteroid belt and wandered through interplanetary space until it encountered Earth on February 12, 1947. Upon slamming into the atmosphere at cosmic velocity (~11 miles/second) it began to break apart, producing a fireball brighter than the Sun as it sailed over Siberia’s Sikhote-Alin Mountains. The shockwaves from the low altitude explosion of the main mass collapsed chimneys, shattered windows, and uprooted trees. Sonic booms were heard more than 300 kilometers away and a 33-kilometer-long smoke trail persisted in the sky for several hours. The resulting meteorites produced impact craters as large as 26 meters — with nearly 200 craters having been catalogued. A famous painting of the event by artist and eye-witness P. I. Medvedev was reproduced as a postage stamp issued by the Soviet government in 1957 to commemorate what many witnesses thought was the end of the world. In celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Sikhote Alin event, a pair of these stamps accompany this offering.

There are two types of Sikhote-Alin meteorites: the jagged and twisted specimens that resulted from the low-altitude explosion and the more desirable, gently scalloped specimens that broke free of the main mass in the upper atmosphere and were sculpted by frictional heating during their plunge to Earth. This is an example of the latter. This meteorite is blanketed with scores of regmaglypts (thumbprint-like indentations produced during a meteorite’s blazing plunge through Earth’s upper atmosphere). Patches of fusion crust — another product of frictional heating in the atmosphere — are also in evidence. Wrapped in a variegated cocoa oxidized patina, this is the result of laying in moist forest ground until its recovery. This is a rare offering of a meteorite with notable provenance originating from one of the most massive meteorite showers since the dawn of civilization.

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.

112 x 155 x 89mm (4.5 x 6 x 3.5 in.) 4.429 kg (9.75 lbs)
Unmounted stamps 37 x 25mm (1.5 x 1 in.)