On February 1, 2019 at 1:17 p.m. an extremely bright fireball accompanied by multiple sonic booms entered Earth’s atmosphere over Pinar Del Rio Province, Cuba. The ground rumbled for 15 seconds from the booms before a meteorite shower descended onto Viñales Valley — home to a monument that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Numerous meteorites were recovered near the monument — and at least one meteorite actually struck it (see next lot) while several others burst through the thatched rooftops of local residents. Gratefully, while there were a couple of extremely close calls, no one was hit. It might be noted there are still no documented human fatalities from a meteorite impact to date — a statistic destined to be revised with the passage of time. (See lot 54.)

As a result of heating and melting on its parent body in interplanetary space, Viñales meteorites are highly recrystallized and chondrule margins are difficult to discern, thus Viñales’ classification as a highly metamorphosed chondrite.

One face is cut and polished while the reverse is an animated naturally fractured surface. Pronounced shock veins and pockets of impact melt coursing through the meteorite’s light gray matrix beguile in this superior example. Also featured is a patch of fusion crust — an artifact of frictional heating in Earth’s atmosphere. Small metallic flakes suspended throughout the matrix provide additional accenting. Modern cutting.

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.
67 x 44 x 8mm (2.66 x 1.75 x 0.33 in.) and 48 grams