Rare lunar meteorite among treasures at Heritage nature and science auction Dallas

Among the lunar lots is Oued El Hamim 001 (OEH 001), an officially classified 608.73-gram lunar fragmental breccia recovered in Ajdabiya, Libya, and recognized in the Meteoritical Bulletin as one of only 48 known specimens. Further, it could contain evidence of water on the Moon, which would represent a major shift in current understanding of its composition. “This could be highly significant because it is aqueous-altered,” Kissick says. “That may have been caused by impact-related processes on Earth, or it could have been caused by ancient lunar volcanic activity.” A matched pair of pieces from another lunar meteorite, NWA 16683, is an intriguing specimen. Classified as troctolitic anorthosite, a lithology associated with the deep crust of the Moon, the sliced pair weighs a combined 689 grams and presents complementary perspectives of this very special extraterrestrial rock. The main mass of the Martian meteorite NWA 17754, representing a