Touch the moon if you can: Only known moon rocks to be auctioned in New York

Sotheby's will auction the only known moon rocks to be returned to Earth and be legally available for private ownership: three lunar samples retrieved by the Soviet Union's Luna 16 probe in 1970 and subsequently sold by Sotheby's for $442,500 in 1993. (So
Sotheby's will auction the only known moon rocks to be returned to Earth and be legally available for private ownership: three lunar samples retrieved by the Soviet Union's Luna 16 probe in 1970 and subsequently sold by Sotheby's for $442,500 in 1993. Sotheby's

During childhood, parents and grandparents narrated several stories about the moon. After a certain age, the school teachers told us what the moon is. Even though many children then wanted to touch the moon, slowly they understood the journey is not easy at all. But, now a chance has come to your door step and you can fulfil the dream of your childhood if your pocket is deep enough.

The trio pieces of earth's largest natural satellite, moon, will be auctioned by Sotheby's but only a few lucky people would have a chance to own the lunar pebbles, as the price is expected to be quite high. The Sotheby's space exploration-themed auction on November 29 in New York City.

These pieces were actually under the ownership of Russian space program before these were gifted to the Nina Ivanovna Koroleva, the widow of Sergei Korolev, who was the "Chief Designer" of the Russian space program by the Russian government. However, these are the part of a sample that was returned by Soviet-era lunar probes and latter intentionally handed over to a private citizen for the first time.

Almost 25 years ago, these lunar pebbles were sold to a private collector for a price of $442,500 via the same art dealer company Sotheby's. This time the price is expected to be a little bit higher, maybe over $1 million marks.

As per the reports by CollectSpace, Cassandra Hatton, the vice president and senior specialist for science and technology at Sotheby's said "The sale of this item is exciting for me because I remember when the rocks first came up in 1993 and it was a huge deal. To have the opportunity to be involved with offering the same item again is really tremendous."

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