Moon, Mars, and Mercury Boxes

Bundle and save on these cosmic wonders.

Mars: Researchers estimate that meteorites from the Moon are between 4.5 to 2.9 billion years old. Blasted off the surface of their home planet by other meteorite impacts (the impactors likely being large asteroid fragments), they wandered in space until falling here. The improbable origin story of Martian meteorites makes them plenty rare — what are the chances that something would be blasted off a smaller planet that is, on average, 140 million miles away and then land on ours? Couple that with the fact that Martian meteorites are fragile; they are essentially cooled lava from another planet and contain little or no metal, meaning that — unlike most meteorites — metal detectors and magnets cannot be used to recover them, making them notoriously difficult to identify and recover in the field.

Mercury: In 2012, an obscure rock was found somewhere in the desert near northwest africa. Official chemical analysis revealed that this strange rock originated from outer space and had unique petrographic characteristics, meaning it is different from all other known meteorites. Experts officially classified the stone, NWA 7325, as an ungrouped achondrite. The mysterious intrigue of this space rock goes deeper than its unique classification and unknown find site some scientists suggest that based on its oxidation state, it may have come from the planet Mercury, based on data returned by NASA's messenger space probe. A large and violent impact could have rocked the planet, named after the Roman messenger god, and caused NWA 7325 to catapult its way to earth. Though we cannot be certain of its origin, what is certain is the meteorite's parent body was large enough to form a core, mantle, and crust. Beyond that, only 35 total pieces were recovered, totaling a minuscule 345 grams in weight, making the material rare and highly desirable. Even if the space rock is not from mercury, there has never been anything quite like it found on earth before. NWA 7325 is a unique piece sparking much debate throughout the scientific community and much excitement among collectors.

Moon: If you look at the moon through a telescope, you will immediately notice that much of its surface is covered by craters. Some of these may be volcanic in origin, but many or most are meteorite craters and they were made when cosmic debris from elsewhere — most likely the asteroid belt — crashed into the moon. When the composition of a lunar meteorite that has been found on earth is analyzed in the laboratory, it is clearly seen to be a match for specimens transported to earth by the apollo astronauts. More remarkable than that, even, is the fact that some lunar meteorites can be paired with a particular part of our nearest neighbor, meaning we can tell not just that they came from the moon, but also which part of the moon.

Because no two meteorites or impactities are the same, yours will be similar but not exact.