Lot 1
THE OLDEST MATERIAL IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
ALLENDE, CARBONACEOUS CHONDRITE, CV3, FELL CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO, 26°58' N, 105°19' W
Auction: 28 May 2026 from 13:00 BST
Description
The present example comes from the world-famous Allende meteorite, one of the most extensively studied meteorites ever recovered, with hundreds of scientific papers devoted to its remarkable composition and origin. Allende fell in Chihuahua Mexico at 1 A.M. on the morning of February 8, 1969. The huge fireball it created lit up thousands of square miles above the desert and ranch land of northern Mexico. For nearly 40 miles, hundreds of thousands of meteorite fragments fell across the landscape, making the Allende meteorite shower one of the largest known strewn fields on record.
Allende is a rare carbonaceous chondrite that preserves some of the oldest known material in the Solar System. Its most remarkable features are the white calcium–aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs) visible here, widely regarded as the first solid substances to form in the primordial Solar System. These components are effectively the first building blocks of planetary formation. Dating to approximately 4.567 billion years ago, their age is used as the reference “time zero” for Solar System formation.
The present example therefore represents a direct physical link to both the earliest stages of Solar System formation and the even older stellar processes that preceded it; an exceptionally rare record of deep cosmic time preserved in stone.
Dimensions
75.8g, 9.5cm diameter
Provenance
Dr. Elbert King, Houston, Texas, United States
Al Mitterling, United States
Martin Goff, United Kingdom
Robert Elliot, United Kingdom