Top 10 rarest meteorites on Earth! (2024)

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Top 10 rarest meteorites on Earth!? ›

It is believed the mineral was forged in the molten core of an ancient asteroid long since destroyed, and then strewn across the solar system. But as the Wedderburn Meteorite is about the size of a lemon, and the only known source of Fe₅C₂, it may be the rarest mineral in the world.

It is believed the mineral was forged in the molten core of an ancient asteroid long since destroyed, and then strewn across the solar system. But as the Wedderburn Meteorite is about the size of a lemon, and the only known source of Fe₅C₂, it may be the rarest mineral in the world.

A unique 4-pound pallasite meteorite featuring crystals of olivine and peridot recently sold for $60,480. That's over $15,000 per pound! Pieces of Mars rock can command similar prices, with a 4.25-pound piece selling for $63,000, approximately $15,000 per pound. Meteorites from the Moon are even more valuable.

Some unclassified meteorites will sell for around 50 cents per gram. More beautiful stones such as pallasites contain crystals and can look extremely dazzling when they're polished. Those can range all the way up to $40 dollars a gram. Rarer stones can fetch up to $1000 per gram if they're in good condition.

The Esquel pallasite is known worldwide among collectors and the meteoritical scientific community. Esquel is regarded as one of the most beautiful meteorites ever found and is also one of the most desirable pallasites among meteorite collectors.

It was suggested that the find was worth $1.8m (£1.36m), making the man an overnight millionaire - and if he wasn't, they debated whether he'd been short-changed selling it to US buyers. But neither of those things is true. The meteorite is not worth millions, and no-one has been ripped off.

The reported gold contents of meteorites range from 0.0003 to 8.74 parts per million. Gold is siderophilic, and the greatest amounts in meteorites are in the iron phases. Estimates of the gold content of the earth's crust are in the range ~f 0.001 to 0.006 parts per million.

Meteorites are quite valuable, worth as much as $1,000 per gram, according to the LiveScience website. Kellyco Metal Detectors posted on eBay that it can sell for $300 per gram or more — meaning 1 pound could be worth $1 million. "Meteorites are rarer than gold, platinum, diamonds or emeralds.

Meteorite NWA 12691 was found in the Sahara Desert and weighs just under 30 pounds, It is valued at more than $2.5 million.

We Are Tektite and Meteorite Buyers

SkyFall will buy your entire collection, a part of your collection or even an individual specimen. If there was a confirmed meteorite fall in your area, town or village, then jump to Section 3.

Is it hard to sell a meteorite? ›

You can list your meteorite on popular online marketplaces, but buyers will often want documentation (as you should to ensure that you are not scammed). It's often recommended to contact a meteor seller instead as they can do all the work of preparing it and selling it while you get cash for the find.

By studying samples from the asteroid Ryugu, the group found that their iron makeup is indistinguishable from the rare type of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites known as carbonaceous Ivuna type (CI).

A 12-pound (5.5 kilogram) chunk of the moon that fell to the Earth as a lunar meteorite has been sold at auction for more than $600,000.

The majority of meteorite finds are stony meteorites, consisting mostly of silicate minerals.

Barringer Meteor Crater is the largest impact crater yet discovered in the United States. The impact occurred approximately 50,000 years ago from a meteor weighing several hundred thousand tons.

Stony meteorites are by far the most common. More than 95% of meteorites observed to fall to Earth are stony. They can be divided into chondrites and achondrites. Both types are composed mostly of silicate minerals, but the great majority also contain metallic iron in small-scattered grains.

You may try contacting the Geological Survey of your state, a local college or university or college or a local natural history museum. In addition, there are a few commercial firms that will charge a fee for examining and identifying suspected meteorites.

A highly sought after meteorite can auction off for $50/gram, while rare examples of lunar and Martian meteorites may sell for $1,000/gram or more — almost twenty times the current price of gold!

The $25,000 reward is for the first meteorite piece found that weighs 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) or more. However, he said the museum would be willing to pay for any specimen “irrespective of its size.” “Finding meteorites in woods of Maine. It's not the simplest of the environments,” Pitt said.

But that's exactly what we've found inside a rare group of meteorites known as ureilites, which likely came from the mantle of a dwarf planet or very large asteroid that was destroyed 4.56 billion years ago in a giant collision. Within these space rocks, we found layered diamonds with distinctive fold patterns.

Is there diamond in meteorites? ›

Although diamonds on Earth are rare, extraterrestrial diamonds (diamonds formed outside of Earth) are very common. Diamonds small enough that they contain only about 2000 carbon atoms are abundant in meteorites and some of them formed in stars before the Solar System existed.

Scientists only know of a few crater deposits that contain lonsdaleite, including the Barringer (Meteor) Crater in Arizona. Not all ureilite meteors contain space diamonds, though.

Common iron meteorite prices are generally in the range of US$0.50 to US$5.00 per gram. Stone meteorites are much scarcer and priced in the US$2.00 to US$20.00 per gram range for the more common material.

Density: Meteorites are usually quite heavy for their size, since they contain metallic iron and dense minerals. Magnetic: Since most meteorites contain metallic iron, a magnet will often stick to them. For “stony” meteorites, a magnet might not stick, but if you hang the magnet by a string, it will be attracted.

Some of the rarest types of meteorites, the achondrites, do not attract magnets for the same reason that most earth rocks do not attract magnets – they do not contain iron-nickel metal. Achondrites are rare, however. Only 2.5% of the ~1500 stony meteorites that have been found in the U.S. are achondrites.

The f*ckang Meteorite

It was discovered in 2000 and is one of the most expensive meteorites found on Earth. It has been named after the place where it was first found.

While it is illegal for private collectors to own Apollo return samples, it is entirely legal to buy lunar meteorites.

The largest known meteorite in the world is the Hoba meteorite (sometimes referred to as the “Hoba West” meteorite) that was found near the town of Grootfontein in what is now Namibia.

Is it legal to own a meteorite? Yes. It is completely legal to own a meteorite, at least in the United States. Different countries have set different rules.

Value is determined by many different factors including rarity of type, size, condition, aesthetic appeal, and so on. Meteorites have significant financial value to collectors and scientific value to researchers. Meteorite values can range from a few dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What makes a meteorite worth money? ›

Those with fresh fusion crust are worth more. The presence of peridot and the quality of the crystals is a determinant of value. Everything else being the same, slices of rare meteorites are more valuable per unit weight than a complete mass which weighs the same.

Try not to handle any freshly fallen meteorites with your bare hands! Oils and microbes from your skin will slowly degrade the surface of a meteorite, dulling the fusion crust, contaminating the meteorite, and promoting rust.

Actually it's more like 3.5 times their weight in gold, according to today's market value… and meteorite experts from SETI and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Nickel Test: Run a chemical test for nickel. If the proportion of nickel is inside the range for meteorites, you may have a meteorite. Weight Test: Meteorites are much more dense than normal earth rocks. Fusion Crust Test: Fusion crust is a thin, dark rind formed on a meteorite as it streaks through our atmosphere.

Stony-Iron Meteorites

The least abundant of the three main types, the stony-irons, account for less than 2% of all known meteorites.

Iridium (Ir) – Iridium, a member of the platinum family of metals (PGMs) is a rare and valuable metal that is often found in meteorites. Iridium has a variety of industrial uses, including in the production of hard alloys and as a catalyst in chemical reactions.

You may never have actually seen a meteorite, but they keep falling to earth. According to a study by researchers at the University of Manchester and Imperial College published in Geology, there are about 17,000 of them a year.

Price: $2 per gram.

When meteoroids enter Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet, like Mars) at high speed and burn up, the fireballs or “shooting stars” are called meteors. When a meteoroid survives a trip through the atmosphere and hits the ground, it's called a meteorite.

After a fireball streaked through the Canadian sky, Ruth Hamilton, of British Columbia, found a 2.8-pound rock the size of a large man's fist near her pillow.

What state has the most meteorites? ›

About two thirds of meteorites found in the United States have been found in arid regions of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Kansas. 2200 meteorites have been found in Chile, mainly in the Atacama Desert.

Magnetite and hematite are common iron-bearing minerals that are often mistaken for meteorites. Both minerals can occur as large masses with smooth surfaces that are heavier than typical rocks, but have some features which resemble meteorites. Magnetite is very magnetic (hence its name) and hematite is mildly magnetic.

Meteorites can be mistaken for slag, basalt (an extrusive igneous rock), iron ore, and iron nodules.

Most meteorites are found in deserts, of which Antarctica is a polar desert. Other regions with high counts of retrieved meteorites are the Sahara Desert of northern Africa (Over 14,000 meteorites) and the the Arabian Peninsula (about 4,200).

There are well-known strewn fields located near New Mexico's Glorieta Mountain, as well as Holbrook and Franconia in Arizona. Since 1995, thousands of stony meteorites have also been recovered in what appears to be two overlapping strewn fields in Gold Basin, Ariz.

About 66 million years ago, a space rock 6 miles (10 kilometers) wide now called the Chicxulub impactor slammed into Earth off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Esquel pallasite is known worldwide among collectors and the meteoritical scientific community. Esquel is regarded as one of the most beautiful meteorites ever found and is also one of the most desirable pallasites among meteorite collectors. It is a main group pallasite (MGP).

More than 95% of all meteorites contain iron-nickel (FeNi) metal. As a consequence, meteorites have concentrations of nickel that are much greater than that of nearly any terrestrial rock. “Iron-nickel” means that the metal is mostly iron but it also contains 5-30% nickel.

The rarest kind of meteorite are the stony-iron meteorites, containing about equal parts of stone and iron.

Meteorites are quite valuable, worth as much as $1,000 per gram, according to the LiveScience website. Kellyco Metal Detectors posted on eBay that it can sell for $300 per gram or more — meaning 1 pound could be worth $1 million. "Meteorites are rarer than gold, platinum, diamonds or emeralds.

Are meteorites rarer than gold? ›

Meteorites are small rocks from space that impact the Earth. They are exceedingly rare: the collective weight of every meteorite known to exist is less than the world's annual output of gold.

Meteorites have significant financial value to collectors and scientific value to researchers. Meteorite values can range from a few dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Scientists have found tiny diamonds in meteorites, or rocks from space, before. But now, Australian scientists said this week (September 12, 2022) they've confirmed the existence of a rare form of space diamond in four meteorites picked up in North Africa. These diamonds are lonsdaleite.

Many analysts have reported the presence of small amounts of platinum in meteorites, but, on the other hand, it has sometimes been sought and reported as being absent. Possibly the reason for this fact is that the amount present was too small to be detected by the method used.

Is it legal to own a meteorite? Yes. It is completely legal to own a meteorite, at least in the United States. Different countries have set different rules.

Magnetite and hematite are common iron-bearing minerals that are often mistaken for meteorites. Both minerals can occur as large masses with smooth surfaces that are heavier than typical rocks, but have some features which resemble meteorites. Magnetite is very magnetic (hence its name) and hematite is mildly magnetic.

Stony meteorites are by far the most common. More than 95% of meteorites observed to fall to Earth are stony. They can be divided into chondrites and achondrites. Both types are composed mostly of silicate minerals, but the great majority also contain metallic iron in small-scattered grains.

A large chunk of Martian rock, worth an estimated $30,000 to $50,000, holds bubbles of the planet's atmosphere trapped inside.