NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announces its fifth annual online auction of meteorites which will be open for bidding from 6-14 February with estimates ranging from $500 to $500,000.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day is an iconic iron meteorite in the shape of a heart. ‘The Heart of Space’, is one of the finest meteorites in private hands. It originates from the biggest meteorite shower of the last several thousand years — which occurred in Siberia on February 12, 1947. The shockwaves from the explosion collapsed chimneys, shattered windows and uprooted trees; sonic booms were heard nearly 200 miles away and eyewitnesses thought the world was ending. Among the meteorites to land on Earth that day was a natural sculptural form from outer space in the shape of a heart. It’s the result of unlikely yet fortuitous cleavage along its crystalline planes as it burned through Earth’s atmosphere — a fiery plunge that thumb-printed surface that evokes the texture of a Giacometti, it is estimated to sell for $300,000 – $500,000.

Meteorites are exceedingly rare (The combined mass of all known in museum and private collections weighs less than the world’s annual output of gold). The more esoteric meteorites subtypes are among the rarest objects on Earth. Eight of the lots in the sale contain extraterrestrial gemstones in the form of olivine and peridot. Referred to as pallasites, they are among the rarest of meteorites representing just 0.2% of all meteorites. These exotic meteorites originate from the mantle/core boundary of an asteroid that had blown apart and whose remnants are part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — and they are the most beautiful extraterrestrial substance known. Estimates range from $3,000 to 30,000. Of even greater rarity are lunar meteorites. Most of the craters on the Moon are the result of asteroid impacts, and some of these impacts are sufficiently powerful to eject Moon rocks off the lunar surface into space—some of which land on Earth. Vetted by the top scientists in the field, the estimates of the four lunar specimens in this sale range from $12,000 - $35,000.

Also included in this 45 lot sale, and weighing nearly 190 pounds, is a massive iron meteorite (estimate $40,000 – 60,000); a complete slice of a meteorite which contains the oldest matter mankind can touch (estimate: $2,000 – 3,000); a partial slice from the most famous meteorite in the world whose main mass is a museum centerpiece in New York City (estimate: $6,000 – 9,000).

Highlights:

• THE MOST FAMOUS METEORITE IN THE WORLD — A PARTIAL SLICE OF THE WILLAMETTE METEORITE. Iron – UNGR. Clackamas County, Oregon (45°22' N, 122°35' W). Estimate: $6,000 - 9,000

• MASSIVE SCULPTURE FROM OUTER SPACE — AESTHETIC CAMPO DEL CIELO IRON METEORITE. Iron, coarse octahedrite – IAB-MG. Gran Chaco, Argentina (27°28' S, 60°35' W). Estimate: $40,000 - 60,000

• EXTRATERRESTRIAL GEMSTONES IN METALLIC MATRIX — A COMPLETE SLICE OF A SEYMCHAN METEORITE. Pallasite – PMG. Magadan District, Siberia, Russia. Estimate: $3,000 - 5,000