Meteorite provides Dordrecht Observatory more than hoped: 1.7 million euros

A piece of the Gibon-Meteorite has proved to be a gift from heaven for the Mercury Observatory in Dordrecht. The observatory needs money to stay open and had the iron meteorite auctioned. The 240 kilo heavy debris raised 1.7 million euros this afternoon.

That is more than expected in advance. Auction house Hessink Fine Art Auctioners had estimated that the object would yield between 800,000 and a million euros. It would be about the largest IJzermeteorite ever auctioned.

There was applause and cheers in the room when the sale was picked with the auction hammer:

“1.7 million is bizarre and great,” says a beaming Erik Blokland of the observatory in Dordrecht. He and his colleagues found the previously mentioned amount of a million euros high.

For the observatory it was an exciting auction. As the amounts offered rose, Blokland said he started to sweat in places where you didn’t know it was possible “. He explains that “a lot” of the 1.7 million euros must be done. For example, the observatory will be refurbished and the construction of a planetarium will be completed.

Special structure

De Gibeon was formed 4.5 billion years ago. It is the melted core of an asteroid that ran around the sun between planets Mars and Jupiter. The meteorite has the so -called Widmanstättent structure, triangular shapes that arise in the iron and nickel during the journey through space.

Many thousands of years ago, the Gibon, who weighed a total of 26,000 kilos, crashed into pieces on earth. The debris were found in the Kalahari desert in present-day Namibia. During the colonial era, the first pieces of meteorite were brought to Europe.

The first registered owner of the 240 kilo piece was a company in the US state of Arizona. Since 2004, the Gibeon was in possession of Mercury Observatory. The new owner only announced that it is an “American bidder”.