Météorite de fer 'Campo del Cielo', spécimen complet

Campo del Cielo Iron Meteorite--Complete Individual
Iron-nickel, Coarse Octahedrite
Santiago del Estero, Gran Chaco, Argentina
In 1576, nearly 4,000 years after Campo del Cielo collided with Earth, native South Americans told Spanish explorers of the heavy metal which fell from the heavens and which gave rise to the name of this famous locality, translated as 'Field of the Sky'. Spanish explorers, unaware of the extraterrestrial origin of the curiously heavy masses, wrote about them and endeavored to extract precious metals from them until 1770. It was not until 1962 that a comprehensive study of the famous Gran Chaco locality was made. Campo del Cielo meteorites are classified as polycrystalline, coarse octahedrites with a significant amount of silicate-graphite-troilite inclusions. The present specimen was discovered in 1996 and is a large, complete individual with excellent aesthetics and regmaglypts. Weighing 18.3 kilograms and measuring 21 x 26 x 16 cm