Neil Armstrong's Moon Dust From The Apollo 11 Mission Sells For $500,000 At Auction
Update: 2022-04-15 15:15 IST
Neil Armstrong's Moon Dust From The Apollo 11 Mission Sells For $500,000 At Auction
A little piece of lunar dust gathered by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission, which was the first to land men on the Moon, was auctioned off for $504,375. The Moon dust was auctioned at Bonhams Auctioneers in New York on Wednesday as part of their Space History Sale.
Armstrong gathered the dust in 1969, shortly after taking his initial steps on the Moon. The six-figure total price fell short of Bonhams' pre-auction prediction of $800,000 to $1.2 million, reported NDTV. The winning bid was $400,000, with costs and the buyer's premium factored in.
The successful sale brings the moon dust's long and tumultuous career on Earth to a close. However, given that the particles are the only authenticated Moon samples to be sold into private hands, the cost at which the Moon dust was sold is remarkably modest.
The lunar dust's journey to the auction house was nearly as legendary as Armstrong's journey to recover them. NASA even proceeded to court to battle for the right to own the lunar dust. According to the news outlet, the dust was sold to Nancy Lee Carlson, a Michigan lawyer, who paid $995 for a "flown zipped lunar collection returning bag with lunar dust" at a US Marshal's auction in 2015.
She sent her recent purchase to the US space agency after discovering microscopic traces of what she assumed to be Moon dust in the bag.
Meanwhile, it's still a mystery how NASA misplaced the priceless samples. However, in 2002, it was discovered in the ownership of Max Ary, a co-founder of a space museum in Kansas who was convicted of trafficking stolen antiques. After being compounded in 2003, the lunar dust was sold at auction, and Nancy Lee Carlson bought it.