The 4.5 billion-year-old space rock which can be yours to own: Artist puts fragment of Russian meteor on eBay

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

A necklace made from a fragment of a huge Russian meteor which fell to earth in 2013 is being auctioned by a British artist on eBay today

An artist has turned a fragment of a 4.5 billion-year-old meteor which shocked the world when it fell over a Russian city into a necklace – and is about to re-auction the intergalactic debris on eBay, where she bought the rock following its fiery landing in 2013.

Rosalind McLachlan originally bid for a section of the 20-metre Chelyabinsk meteor, which weighed 12,000 tons when it blasted into earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 42,000mph over the city it is named after, on the auction site. Residents sold chunks of the rock for up to $60,000 during the “asteroid fever” aftermath of the meteor’s arrival on a February morning.

She pieced it into a necklace as part of an artwork, Baetylus (Catch a Falling Star), inspired by the descent, which caused a blast up to 30 times more powerful than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb and injured more than 1,000 people.

“At first I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it but I knew it was an object I wanted to work with,” says McLachlan, discussing the 8.4g chondrite - or stony meteorite - which she bought online. “I was intrigued by the fact that there are still people today that venerate meteorites. There is a group of people that really believe that meteorites have this healing quality.”

A 12-minute video in the exhibition, at Sunderland’s Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, shows explosive footage of the meteor’s mighty fall, including rare news footage of the Church of the Chelyabinsk Meteorite engaged in an act of worship on the shores of Lake Chebarkul. The largest piece collided here and punched a six-metre wide hole into the lake’s frozen surface.

McLachlan has collated a soundtrack alongside the images in an attempt to convey the power held by this alien object – a building block of our solar system and a unique record of the conditions that existed billions of years ago, before the Earth had formed.

“Will it be people who are interested in art or someone from the church of the meteorite?” ponders McLachlan, asked where she thinks the necklace will end up and who might buy it. “I really like the idea of the meteorite carrying on its journey. These kinds of ritual objects were traded in their own ways and now we have eBay. I am letting it out in to the universe and whatever happens, happens.”

The artwork will be sold to the highest bidder on February 15 – the three-year anniversary of the meteorite’s fall to earth.

• Baetylus (Catch a Falling Star) is in the gallery’s Crab Walk until February 20 2016. Join the exhibition Facebook event for updates. The auction is now live on eBay.
  

The Chelyabinsk meteorite

• At 9.20am on February 15 2013, the meteor entered the atmosphere to  worldwide attention. Its descent was captured on CCTV and car dashboard cameras all over the city of Chelyabinsk, sending social media sites into a frenzy.
  
  
• People began selling fragments on the internet. McLachlan bought one of them, described by scientists to be as old as time itself, and has transformed it into the piece of unique space rock jewellery.
  
  
• The necklace forms a key piece in Baetylus, the artist’s work centred on the Chelyabinsk meteor’s fall to the ground in Russia in 2013 and the artwork is part of Sunderland’s Northern Gallery’s Crab Walk exhibition.
  
  
• The word baetylus denotes sacred stone - one that fell from heaven and contained the power of life. Ancient sources say these objects of worship were meteorites and were dedicated to the gods.
  
  
• The ancient Egyptians used meteoric iron, or “iron from the sky”, to make sacred jewellery that was buried with their dead.
  
  
• Curators at the gallery say the artwork is a story of “transformation, rebirth and symbolism” exploring human fascination and worship of meteorites.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

Three places to find out more about space in

National Meteorological Library and Archive, Exeter
From its beginnings in the 1850s as the library of the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade, the National Meteorological Library and Archive has become one of the most comprehensive collections of material on meteorology anywhere in the world. The nearby Royal Albert Memorial Museum also has an exhibition, Whatever the Weather, until April 10 2016.

National Space Centre, Leicester
The award-winning National Space Centre is the UK's largest attraction dedicated to space. From the minute you catch sight of the Space Centre's futuristic Rocket Tower, you'll be treated to hours of breathtaking discovery and interactive fun.

Science Museum, London
Life-changing objects from Stephenson’s Rocket to the Apollo 10 command module, science shows, immersive 3D movies, special effects simulators, introduce hands-on interactives and more across seven floors of galleries?

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/science-and-nature/art546410-chelyabinsk-russian-meteor-northern-gallery-art