The rich and famous are sending meteorite prices sky high.
They really are from out of this world, and the prices are astronomical. For those who have everything they need on Earth, what they now seem to want is a little bit of space. Meteorites are attracting the attention of celebrity collectors who have pushed the price of the rocks tenfold over the past decade.
More than 70 of the most spectacular meteorites ever found will go under the hammer at Christie’s auction house tomorrow in a sale that is expected to generate millions of pounds. Included in the Deep Impact auction are meteorites embedded with gem stones and others have suffered such an impact from blasting through the atmosphere at up to 160,000mph that they resemble sculptures by Alberto Giacometti or Henry Moore.
A slice of a meteorite that has been scientifically proved to have fallen from the moon (pictured) is expected to sell for between £180,000 and £250,000. The chemical composition of others has been compared to samples of Mars atmosphere brought back by Nasa’s expeditions to Mars to prove that they are Martian meteorites. In recent years, some large rocks have sold for millions.
James Hyslop, the Christie’s auctioneer overseeing the online auction, said meteorites have experienced a surge in popularity as they capture so many people’s imaginations and are exceedingly rare. The weight of every known meteorite is less than the world’s annual output of gold, and some have sold for 10 times their weight in gold.
Some of the world’s richest people and a fair few celebrities are expected to keep an eye on the Christie’s website when the sale goes live tomorrow.
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