Small piece of moon gets auctioned for over $600,000

It turns out people really want to get their hands on a chunk of moon and although it’s not really affordable for many, a piece of it was sold at an auction for over $600,000.

A 5.5kg chunk of moon fell to the Earth as a lunar meteorite and has now been sold at an auction in Boston for $612,500, surpassing the expected rate of $500,000 by the Boston-based RR Auction.

The lunar meteorite, known as NWA 11789 and unofficially known as ‘The Moon Puzzle’, was discovered last year in a remote area of Mauritania in northwest Africa, but experts believe that it may have plunged to Earth thousands of years ago, wrote The Guardian.

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The meteorite got its unofficial name because it comprised six fragments that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The auction house informed that the lunar meteorite was blasted off the moon’s surface, most probably by the impact of a different meteorite, and then traveled around 384,400km to Earth.

Since then it was considered as one of the most important lunar meteorites ever discovered that’s to its large size and its ‘partial fusion crust’ caused by the incredible heat that burns the rocks as it falls to Earth, as per New York Times.

Though there are no details about the seller and the buyer yet, the piece of moon will be put on display at the Tam Chuc Pagoda Complex in Vietnam.