Kilogram end-cut displaying gray pyroxene and milky plagioclase within a lithology of vesicular, very fine grained material. The meteorite was part of a huge asteroid fragment excavated from the lower crust of Vesta by an energetic collision early in our Solar-System history. While traveling through interplanetary space, pieces broke off this fragment. The present meteorite probably broke off its parent mass a few million years ago and was sent on a collision course with Earth.
Vesta is the second largest asteroid and the only large one covered with basalt – the same fine-grained volcanic rock that spews from Hawaiian volcanoes, makes up the dark areas of the Moon, and the huge shield volcanoes on Mars. Three groups of achondrites (igneous meteorites) are widely thought to have come from Vesta; these are the HED meteorites – Howardites, Eucrites and Diogenites. Eucrites are basalts derived from the surface and upper crust of Vesta; diogenites are from the deep crust; and howardites are impact mixtures of both groups.
Diogenites are rare objects, making up just 0.8% of known meteorites. NWA 8744 was found in the Sahara Desert in 2014. it is a rare example of a highly shocked and vesiculated diogenite breccia.
14.5 x 10 x 4.5 cm and 1,043g.
Detail, with the large gas bubble trapped within: 
Upon cutting cutting and polishing, the stone‘s vesicular texture was discovered. Swirls of melt material mix percolating around islands of plagioclase. Clasts of blocky orthopyroxene suspended in milky plagioclase – very surreal.
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