Image 3 of 4 from The Fukang Pallasite for sale

April 9, 2008 Meteorite enthusiasts the world over know of the Fukang Meteorite. Discovered in the Gobi desert (near Fukang) in China eight years ago, the extremely rare and beautiful Pallasite meteorite is thought to have originated at the mantle-core boundary of very large differentiated asteroids that were destroyed during the early formation of the solar system over 4.5 billion years ago, give or take a hundred millennia or so. Fukang’s unique crystalline structures formed as the metal matrix cooled, with no gravitational influence, at a rate of only a few degrees per million-year period. Now the “main mass” of the meteorite, a distinction considered highly desirable by meteorite collectors, is to be sold at auction by international fine art auctioneers Bonhams on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at its salerooms in New York.