Covered in fresh fusion crust and regmaglypts (the aerodynamic thumbprinting that occurs as the meteorite’s molten surface interacts with Earth’s increasingly dense atmosphere), this is a hefty stone meteorite. Strong hints of flight orientation are evident. In several corners, the fusion crust is missing, revealing the meteorite’s matrix of metal and silicate. On the reverse side, a cut was made along the meteorite’s length to enable the meteorite’s classification. It serendipitously provides a large window of the meteorite’s matrix, which is aesthetically framed by fusion crust. The variegated warm gray matrix seen is punctuated with chestnut accents and a wealth of suspended metallic flakes—including a single vertical vein of metal—which gleams as the meteorite is rotated, a signature feature of a fresh H5 meteorite.
254 x 119 x 103 mm. (10 x 4.66 x 4 in.)

4.97 kg. (11 lbs.)

To enable scientists to refer to the unique attributes of a given meteorite, there must be a nomenclature system, and so a committee of scientists name meteorites after the location to which they’ve been “delivered,” (e.g., a city, village, mountain, river, county, etc.). In a desert, where there are few distinguishing geological features, meteorites are named after a grid encompassing a restricted area and are assigned sequential numbers. NWA 12426 was found in an undisclosed location in the Sahara Desert in 2017. It is the 12,426th meteorite to be catalogued following its recovery in the Northwest African grid of the Sahara. The H5 classification indicates the meteorite has large amounts of free iron and experienced moderate metamorphism on its parent asteroid prior to having been ejected into interplanetary space following an energetic collision. This meteorite is largely covered in fusion crust, a result of frictional heating in the Earth’s atmosphere. Most meteorites this size are barely warm to the touch when they reach the ground. This is due to the freezing-cold core of the rock tending to overwhelm the surficial heating the meteorite experienced during atmospheric passage, and the meteorite’s molten surface having ablated away as the rock fell toward the ground. There is simply too little time for heat from the surface to be conducted into the rock’s cold interior.

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.