Roky’s kennel was hit with a meteorite
(Picture: Christie's)A dog kennel which was hit by a meteorite could fetch up to £220,000 at a Christie’s auction on Wednesday.
The item is among the auction house’s annual sale of rare meteorites, which this year also includes a chunk of the planet Mars and rocks from space which rained down on a sleepy Cotswold town.
Some of the lots in the online auction from Christie’s New York are expected to fetch well in excess of £2m.
The kennel, which is among the main items in the lot, belonged to the owners of Costa Rican German Shepherd, Roky. Its tin roof was hit by a meteorite in 2019.
Remarkably, its value is estimated to be higher than the space rock which hit it.
"To value all the items in the auction, I work to the four S's - size, shape, science and story," James Hyslop, head of the science and natural history department at Christie's, told BBC News.
"The story and its provenance play a very important role in determining the value.
"My first question when I was offered the dog shed for auction was: 'Was Roky okay?'. I'm pleased to report that other than now being 'sans' dog shed, he's doing just fine."
A 15g meteorite fragment which hit the picturesque town of Winchcombe last year is also up for sale with an estimated value of £50,000 - more than 70 times its weight in gold.
It would be among the largest pieces of meteorite to be held privately.
Much of the fragments which hit Winchcombe on February 28 are held in the UK’s national collection.
Families living around the town rapidly responded to a public appeal to collect the samples before they degraded, allowing them to be analysed for science.
Another 1.7g piece of the Winchcombe rocks, considered among the most important bits of meteorite to be recovered in the UK, is also being sold.
A 9kg chunk of Mars has an estimated price tag of up to £590,000.
Called NWA 12690, it would have splintered off the surface of the Red Planet by a colossal asteroid or comet impact.
It later fell to earth in Mali, in northwest Africa, where it was picked up by a nomad.
Christie's has run a meteorite lot every year since 2014. Items come from across the world, some from existing private collections, and others newly found by meteorite hunters.
