3 small moon rocks are coming up for auction. Here’s why.

On September 12, 1970, the Soviet Union landed a robot on the moon. The probe, named Luna 16, drilled into the lunar ground for seven minutes and removed around 100 grams — just over one-fourth of a pound — of small moon rocks and fragments from a wide-volcanic plains named the Sea of Fertility. Then, it blasted off back to Earth.

Now, three tiny lunar fragments from the Luna 16 mission are being auctioned to the highest bidder through Sotheby’s. The current owner of the little bits of moon, however, remains anonymous.

It may seem odd that human-gathered lunar fragments fell into private hands — similar to perhaps a prized Picasso or a van Gogh. Indeed, most moon specimens are kept in closely-guarded environs, like most of NASA’s 842 pounds of treasured lunar material. Read more…

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