Moon Stone in the former Soviet space mission sold for $ 1 million

Three tiny sized Moon moons were brought in the former Soviet Union's Luna - 16 mission to be sold for $ 1 million in the upcoming auction.

Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's vice president and senior expert, said selling the Moon stones was not easy because: 'You can't buy or sell Moon stones unless you have enough papers. prove that it can be owned by an individual. However, the Moon rock formations that are about to be auctioned are specimens that have enough facilities to be owned by an individual. '

In 1970, the Soviet Union's Luna-16 unmanned spacecraft dug a hole 35cm deep on the surface of the Moon and collected two pieces of stone about 2.2mm and 1.1mm in size.

Tiny but extremely valuable Moon stones.

The specimens donated to Nina Ivanovna Korolev were to acknowledge the dedication of her late husband Sergei Pavlovich Korolev to the national space program.

However, after that, Nina decided to resell two stones in 1993 to an anonymous American collector for $ 442,500 and currently no two Moon stones are known to be owned. something.

In 2017, Sotheby's also sold one while performing the Apollo 11 mission, for $ 1.8 million.

In the United States, all Moonstone trade missions are illegal because it is considered the 'treasure' of this country. Most Moon stones are used as gifts to national governments and some American states.

Because the rare specimens outside the Earth are not available to everyone, the value of Moon rocks is very large. In 2002, two cases of stealing a small amount of Moon rocks occurred at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Not only that, there are scams involving Moon rocks. For example, in 2009, a fraudster sold a stone believed to be the Moon Stone from his first voyage to the Moon of an Apollo 11 manned ship.

This stone was even transferred to the Dutch National Museum. However, space researchers have done a lot of fire when the test results later prove it is actually nothing more than a fossilized wood.