Monaco Journal - Dog kennel hit by meteorite sells at auction

NYSE - LSE
SCU 0% 12.72 $
RBGPF 0.52% 74.42 $
CMSC 1.09% 22.85 $
CMSD 0.9% 23.27 $
RYCEF 7.62% 14.18 $
SCS 0% 10.33 $
NGG 0.28% 70.39 $
VOD -2.31% 10.81 $
RIO 0.47% 59.77 $
RELX 0.21% 51.89 $
GSK -4.9% 37.15 $
BCC -1.29% 83.81 $
BP -0.31% 32.15 $
AZN -4.79% 73.09 $
JRI 0.15% 13.13 $
BTI 0.97% 53.68 $
BCE -0.86% 23.33 $
Dog kennel hit by meteorite sells at auction
Dog kennel hit by meteorite sells at auction

Dog kennel hit by meteorite sells at auction

A Christie's auction of rare meteorites Wednesday sold a rock from space that narrowly missed a German Shepherd when it smashed into his kennel in Costa Rica.

Text size:

But the offer of the third-largest piece of Mars on Earth failed to make an impact at the auction house's annual sale of unusual meteorites.

The buyer paid $21,420 for the three-by-1.5 inch (eight-by-four centimeter) carbonaceous chondrite stone that landed in the garden of dog Roky's owner's home in Aguas Zarcas in April 2019.

The wood and tin doghouse itself, complete with a seven-inch hole marking where the meteorite punctured the roof, sold separately for $44,100, Christie's said.

That was much less than the pre-sale estimate of between $200,000 and $300,000.

A bidder paid $189,000 for a chunk of lunar rock that was discovered in Morocco in 2007, below pre-sale estimates of up to $300,000.

Another slice of the Moon -- found in the Sahara desert in Mauritania -- fetched $69,300 during the two-week online sale that ended Wednesday.

It was a disappointing auction for Mars, though. The 20-pound (9.1 kg) Martian rock had been priced at between $500,000 and $800,000 but failed to find a buyer.

S.Martin--MJ