See the incomparable beauty of the Fukang meteorite

Meteorites are chunks of rock or iron which comes from meteors or asteroids that pass through our planet. While most of them appear like the stones we have on our planet, this discovery will make you reevaluate your prior knowledge of meteorites because this one is utterly unique.

Credits to: hottestonlinetrends.com/2017/12/18/world-mysterious-fukang-meteorite

The Fukang meteorite was discovered in the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang, China by an anonymous hiker. This hiker was reported to have often taken his lunch on a giant rock. He began to grow curious about its type, as it appeared metallic and had crystals in it.

Thus, the man decided to break some pieces and sen them to the United States, where it was confirmed by the latter that the sample pieces were from a meteorite.

The insides yielded a breathtaking gleam of golden crystals of a mineral called olivine glimmered among a silvery nickel-iron which resembled a honeycomb and together they create a beautiful mosaic. The appearance was ‘thought to be relics of forming planets’.

In 2008, an anonymous collector has the largest portion which weighs 925lb. This piece was priced $ 2 million (Php 101,724,000) at an auction in New York, but it was never sold.

According to Daily Mail, Arizona’s Southwest Meteorite Laboratory, which has the 70lb of the rock, said that this discovery will turn out to be ‘one of the greatest meteorite discoveries of the 21st century’. It is reported that this Fukang specimen supersedes other types of the extremely rare class, the pallasite class, though it is not the biggest of all. Rock hunter Steve Arnold discovered a 1,400lb sample in Kansas last 2005.

The exact origins of the Fukang meteorite and other pallasites are unknown. However, it is speculated that they came from the boundary of a melted asteroid and its surrounding olivine mantle. The Fukang meteorite is believed to have been formed way back during the birth of the solar system, which stretches back to 4.5 billion years ago.

The Chinese officials transported the gleaming meteorite to Tucson, Arizona, USA in February 2005. The U.S. lab claimed that the meteorite was the world’s biggest pallasite cross-section that measured 36 by 19 inches.