Skip to main content

Soviet-era ‘moon rocks’ sell for $855,000 at New York auction

moon

Three fragments of rocks retrieved from the moon by a Soviet space mission in 1970 were sold for $855,000 at a New York auction on Thursday.

Sotheby’s auction house said the “moon rocks” are the only known documented lunar matter in private hands. They were offered for sale by an unidentified private American collector who purchased them at auction in 1993 for $442,500.

Sotheby’s said the buyer on Thursday was another private American collector, but the name was not disclosed.

Read More: NASA chooses nine companies to bid on flying to Moon

The auction house said ahead of the sale that the fragments, ranging in size from about .079 inch x .079 inch (2 x 2mm) to .039 inch x .039 inch (1 x 1mm), could fetch up to $1 million.

The lunar samples originally belonged to Nina Ivanovna Koroleva, the widow of former Soviet space program director Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. They were presented to her as a gift on behalf of the Soviet Union in recognition of her husband’s contributions to the program, Sotheby’s said.

The particles were retrieved in September 1970 by the unmanned Luna-16, which drilled a hole in the surface to a depth of 13.8 inches (35 cm) and extracted a core sample, the auction house said in a statement.

Most other known samples taken from the moon remain with the two entities that collected them: the United States during the Apollo 11-17 missions and the Soviet Union via the unmanned Luna-16, Luna-20, and Luna-24 missions.

Collectors pay huge sums for space exploration artifacts. Last year Sotheby’s sold a zippered bag stamped with the words “Lunar Sample Return” laced with moon dust which was used by Neil Armstrong for the first manned mission to the moon in 1969, for $1.8 million.

The post Soviet-era ‘moon rocks’ sell for $855,000 at New York auction appeared first on ARYNEWS.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountability court hears assets case against Ishaq Dar

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in Islamabad on Wednesday resumed the hearing of a reference filed against former finance minister Ishaq Dar by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for allegedly accumulating assets beyond his known sources of income.  Judge Muhammad Bashir is recording the statement of a prosecution witness, Ishtiaq Ahmed. At the previous hearing, the accountability judge had reserved his verdict on an application filed by two co-accused seeking acquittal in the case. Naeem Mehmood and Mansoor Rizvi, who are directors of Dar’s companies, had filed the application requesting the judge to exonerate them from all charges for want of evidence. Qazi Misbah, the counsel for the two co-accused, contended the prosecution has failed to provide compelling evidence to prove the allegations leveled against his clients. The third co-accused President National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), Saeed Ahmed, had already filed an application before the court for his acquittal wh...
Post a Comment
Read more

SFA raids several restaurants in Karachi, imposes fine

KARACHI: The Sindh Food Authority (SFA) on Friday raided several restaurants in city’s North Nazimabad area over unhygienic conditions, ARY News reported. According to the SFA, one of the restaurants was found utilizing the used oil multiple times. The items were also not properly frozen while crockery for serving the food was also not clean. The team imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the restaurant. The SFA team found hygiene standards were sheerly compromised in food making to the core. The food inspectors said they had previously served notices to the food outlets, but the restaurant owners apparently turned a blind eye to it. Raids were also conducted in district Malir and Gulshan-e-Hadeed. Sanitary conditions and lack of fumigation facilities were found at the restaurants in some of the Malir outlets. The SFA team also raided a bakery ‘Friend Bakers’ and imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 over poor hygiene.  Similarly another roadside restaurant was fined Rs 20,000 for neglecting he...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trump says US generals feel Beirut blast was likely an ‘attack’

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Tuesday cast a massive explosion in Beirut as a possible attack, despite statements by Lebanese leaders that it was likely caused by highly explosive material that had been stored at warehouses in the capital for years. “The United States stands ready to assist Lebanon,” Trump said at a White House briefing of Tuesday’s explosion, which killed at least 78 people and injured thousands. “It looks like a terrible attack.” When asked later about his depiction of the explosion, Trump said that he had met with some U.S. generals who feel the blast was not “some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event.” He told reporters that according to these unnamed generals “they seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind.” The Pentagon referred questions to the White House. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was unclear where Trump was receiving his information but that initial information did not appear...
Post a Comment
Read more