Moon rocks sell for 855,000 dollars in US auction

In this file photo taken on November 28, 2018 three Moon Rocks returned to earth from the unmanned Soviet Luna-16 Mission in 1970, are displayed at Sothebys in New York. - Three moon rocks brought to Earth nearly half a century ago and the only known docu

New York: The only documented moon rocks still in private hands sold at an auction house in New York for 850,000. Thursday-s sale - including all sorts of objects and items pertaining to outer space - took place a month before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission to send men around the Moon for the first time, and Sotheby-s took advantage of the anniversary to offer about 300 collectors- items related to assorted space missions, reports Efe news.

The moon rocks - tiny fragments, actually, had been valued between 700,000 and 1 million, and ultimately went for 855,000 after adding taxes and commissions.

The three tiny lunar stones were obtained during the unmanned Russian Luna-16 mission to the Moon in 1970. The rocks were initially the property of Nina Ivanovna Koroleva, the video of the director of the Soviet Union-s space programme, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, who received them as a gift from the USSR in recognition of the contribution of her deceased husband.

They were previously sold at a Sotheby-s auction in 1993, the first time in history that any extraterrestrial item had been offered to the public. Also going on the auction block at the unusual sale on Thursday was a Gemini space suit prepared for NASA between 1963 and 1965 for US astronaut Pete Conrad, which sold for 162,500. Sotheby-s also auctioned off was the painting "The Final Impossibility: Man-s Tracks on the Moon", painted in 1969 by US artist Norman Rockwell and sold for 87,500.

Numerous models of spacecraft, clocks and maps were also sold, along with the autographs of well-known astronauts and cosmonauts - including the Soviet Union-s Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space - as well as photographs were taken of the Moon during space missions and the flags of various nations taken on those missions.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever