Luna Pendant - NWA 14041
Description: Beautiful Lunar Waning Crescent Sterling Silver Pendant with a hanging second full moon sterling silver lunar pendant containing genuine meteorite pieces from the lunar feldspathic breccia meteorite with official name NWA 14041. The pendant will not be exactly the same as the one shown in the pictures, as there will be a natural variation in both the casting process and the granules being added to each pendant. It will have the same jewelry design and will also contain the approximately same amount of lunar pieces of the lunar meteorite NWA 14041 as shown in the example pedant. The example pendant was selected at random and should be representative of what you will receive.
Parent body: The Moon - this material was ejected from our only natural satellite when the Moon was hit by another meteorite.
Pendant and chain: .925 Sterling Silver
Dimensions not including bail: 24mm x 20mm x 4mm
Dimensions including bail: 33mm x 20mm x 10mm
Official name: NWA 14041
Type: Lunar Feldspathic Breccia
Year Found: 2021
Country: Mali
The story: Our Moon takes a lot of hits. This is evidenced by the millions of craters that cover the moons surface. Thankfully the bombardments have slowed down considerably in the last few hundred thousand years, but they still do occur from time to time. Lunar meteorites are material ejected from our Moons surface when it gets hit by a meteorite. If the impact has enough energy, some of the ejecta gets thrown so far it escapes the Moons gravity becoming meteoroids hurtling through space. Some of those lunar meteoroids have the potential to eventually fall into Earths gravity well and go screaming through the atmosphere to hit the surface. Once they hit the Earths surface, they earn the designation of being a meteorite. Much later, perhaps thousands of years later, an even smaller fraction of the meteorites that didnt fall into the oceans or onto unrecoverable terrain, are recovered by nomads and others who happen to find them. Nothing short of miraculous odds. To describe them as rare, is perhaps an understatement.
Northwest Africa 14041 (NWA 14041)
Mali
Purchased: 2021 Feb
Classification: Lunar meteorite (feldspathic breccia)
History: Found in Mali by camel shepherds in January 2021 and subsequently purchased in Algeria by Ahmed Salek.
Petrography: (A. Irving, UWS and P. Carpenter, WUSL) Breccia composed of mineral clasts of anorthite, olivine, low-Ca pyroxene, pigeonite, exsolved pigeonite and minor Ti-chromite set in a fine grained matrix containing minor secondary calcite and a K-Ca-bearing zeolite phase.
Geochemistry: Olivine (Fa 29.0-51.5, FeO/MnO = 99-102, N = 4), low-Ca pyroxene (Fs 23.3Wo 3.7, FeO/MnO = 60), pigeonite (Fs 32.6-68.1Wo 8.7-19.5, FeO/MnO = 52-75, N = 4), pigeonite host (Fs 42.0Wo 10.4, FeO/MnO = 66), augite exsolution lamella (Fs 22.1Wo 40.6, FeO/MnO = 71), anorthite (An 90.8-96.0Or 0.1, N = 3).
Classification: Lunar (feldspathic breccia).
Specimens: 23.6 g in the form of a polished endcut at UWB; remainder with Mr. A. Salek.
