Campo Del Cielo Meteorite With Natural Hole

Like all iron meteorites, the current offering is more than four billion years old and originates from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. This extraterrestrial sculptural form was once part of the core of an asteroid that broke apart — a portion of which was pushed into an Earth-crossing orbit. Spanish Conquistadors in 1576 first documented surprising metallic masses encountered in northern Argentina long before their unearthly origin was understood. The first large meteorite ever displayed at the former British Museum of Natural History (The Natural History Museum) was a Campo del Cielo, and several large Campo del Cielo (“Valley of the Sky”) masses are found in the finest museums throughout the world today. The captivating form now seen is in part due to terrestrialization, in which edges are softened and sockets enlarged from exposure to Earth’s elements as the seasons turned over thousands of years. This specimen’s animated surface texture is wrapped in a charcoal patina with russet accents. With a rare natural hole, this is a captivating iron meteorite. 

Provenance:

Macovich Collection of Meteorites, NYC