A large sphere featuring extraterrestrial olivine and peridot (birthstone of August). It is at the boundary of the mantle and core of a differentiated asteroid, (i.e., an asteroid with a crust, mantle and metallic core) that olivine-rich fragments from the mantle became suspended in the adjacent molten metal of the asteroid’s core. For this material to be accessible, the asteroid had to have cracked and shattered following an impact with another asteroid…and a small bit had to be serendipitously bumped into an Earth-crossing orbit.

The first Seymchan meteorites were found in 1967 near a streambed in the Magadan district of Siberia. Decades later, enterprising meteorite hunters returned to the site. Upon news of successful recoveries, ever larger teams arrived. The Seymchan strewn field which provided most of the pallasitic material to museums and the marketplace throughout the world over the past two decades — is finally depleted. A large search team recently visited the remote site and returned nearly empty-handed.

To render a sphere of this size requires a mass that is at least twice the mass of the final sphere given material-loss during the cutting, grinding and polishing processes. The result is the wondrous three-dimensional presentation now seen revealing aspects of structure impossible to observe in a flat two-dimensional slab. Seymchan meteorites also contain the mineral schreibersite. Many researchers believe schreibersite was a significant source of the phosphorus — delivered to Earth billions of years ago via asteroid impacts — that helped facilitate the origin of life on our planet.

Pallasites represent just 0.2% of all known meteorites and Seymchan is unlike most; its olivine and peridot are not homogeneously dispersed. In effect, this sphere is a one-of-a-kind presentation of the most beautiful extraterrestrial substance known.

Older than Earth itself, now offered is an exceedingly large and distinguished extraterrestrial crystal ball.

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.
89mm (3.5 in.) in diameter and 1.51 kilograms (3.33 lbs)