Admire Meteorite — Complete Slice

Pallasitic meteorites, a combination of the mantle and core of a differentiated asteroid, are the most beautiful extraterrestrial substance known. Representing fewer than 0.2% of all known meteorites, pallasites are also exceedingly rare and like most, Admire formed at the mantle-core boundary of an asteroid about 4.5 billion years ago. It was here that molten metal from the asteroid’s core mixed with chunks of stony olivine from the mantle which later crystallized. When a catastrophic collision shattered Admire’s parent asteroid roughly 100 million years ago, this event — and perhaps a subsequent nudge — sent what was to become the Admire pallasite on a collision course with Earth. Admire was first discovered when it was struck by a plow outside of the town of Admire in Lyon County, Kansas in 1881. Cut and polished, the lustrous iron-nickel metallic matrix of this complete slice features translucent olivine crystals ranging in hue from flaxen to golden brown.