A Complete Slice of a Lunar Meteorite (NWA 8022)

This specimen is a piece of the Moon that was blasted off the lunar surface by an asteroid collision and later landed on Earth. Only a single 1226-g stone of this sample was recovered. Lunar meteorites are among the most exotic objects on our planet; about only 0.3% of all meteorites recovered are lunar in origin. More significantly, only about 100 kg of meteorites originating from the Moon are known to exist and a significant percentage of this material is owned by governmental institutions and is off limits to the private sector. NWA 8022 is a highly recrystallized breccia composed mainly of very fine-grained minerals and a few much coarser grains of anorthite (a calcium-aluminum silicate mineral). Shock veins transect the specimen. The rock was classified by Dr. Anthony Irving, one of the world’s foremost classifiers of planetary material.

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 catalogue note.