Lunar Meteorite Fragment — Sahara Find, Certified Theatrum Mundi

A fragment of the Moon: material torn from the lunar surface by an asteroid impact, carried through space for an unknown interval and recovered in the Sahara, where the desert has preserved meteorites for millennia. Lunar specimens are the rarest class of that material — only about 1,536 kilograms have been recovered worldwide since 1969, against an abundance of Martian and asteroidal falls that dwarfs it.

The piece is documented end to end by Theatrum Mundi: the GPS coordinates of the recovery site, laboratory analysis carried out at the University of Florence, registration with the International Register of Meteorites and the accompanying certificate of authenticity. That chain — find site, laboratory, register — is what separates a scientific specimen from an unattributed stone, and it is the reason such pieces hold their standing in collections.

At 277.52 grams and 26 by 5.8 by 2 centimetres, the fragment sits in the range that collectors find most workable: substantial enough to read as a specimen rather than a chip, compact enough to be mounted, handled and displayed without special provision. Auction records for lunar material have consistently favoured examples of accessible size, and demand from institutions and private collectors alike has kept the category among the most closely followed in meteoritics.