This lunar meteorite has coarse mineral grains, which indicate it originally cooled slowly at depth. Its composition is similar to gabbroic clasts found in other brecciated lunar meteorites. Research completed on NWA 6950 and the NWA 773 clan has determined the age of this meteorite to be 3.1 billion years old.
Lunar samples are readily identified by their highly specific geological, mineralogical, chemical and radiation signatures. Lunar minerals were formed in a weak gravitational field, absence of water, with no free oxygen, and have been altered through exposure to cosmic radiation. The minerals comprising the Moon’s crust are limited. Lunar specimens contain gases originating from the solar wind with isotope ratios that are markedly different than the same gases found on Earth (also a result of cosmic radiation).
When asteroids strike the Moon’s surface, chunks of the Moon are launched into space in much the same way that dust is launched into the air when a child dives onto a bed. One merely needs to view the craters of the Moon to imagine the number of asteroids whose impact would have provided sufficient energy to eclipse the Moon’s gravitational influence and launch surface material into space.
Less than 0.1% of all meteorites recovered are lunar in origin, with less than 150 pounds of meteorites originating from the Moon known to exist. Lunar meteorites are so scarce, and so difficult to identify, that not one example has ever been found in Europe, or either of the American continents. Every single lunar meteorite recovery to date has been from a desert where such meteorites are more readily identified (including the cold desert of Antarctica, where precipitation is negligible).
NWA 6950, Lunar Gabbro (one of 10 ever found), 362g end-cut from main mass. 8x12cm.
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