NWA 12915 | The Main Mass Of An Unusual Iron Meteorite

Meteorites are named after the localities where they fall, e.g., a city, town, river, stream or county — or in the case of Australia, sheep stations — but in the desert, where there are a lack of such distinguishing features, meteorites are named after the designated grid in which they are found and are assigned sequential numbers following their classification. And so, NWA 12915 is the 12,915^th meteorite recovered and then classified from the North West African grid as delimited by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. More significantly, it does not fit into any previously established chemical group and is referred to in scientific lexicon as being “ungrouped”. More significantly still, it originates from a previously undocumented parent body as it has no close compositional relatives among all other ungrouped iron meteorites. There are three specimens of NWA 12015 and this is a distinguished main mass — the largest single specimen. A burnished cinnamon-hued patina with chocolate accents dominate this vaguely rectangular mass with a shallow concavity in the upper left quadrant. Now offered is the main mass of the only extant example from a previously unknown asteroid which was destroyed in early solar-system formation.

PROVENANCE:

Private collection of Albert Jambon / Space Birds