Across the vast Sahara, the desert can seem completely barren, but hidden here and there is something extraordinary: pieces of meteorites that have fallen to Earth. With its uniform terrain, the Sahara is the perfect place to find meteorites like NWA 3163. This meteorite, first discovered in 2001, is a lunar meteorite coated in a dark glassy outer layer that formed during its violent fall through our atmosphere.

Lunar meteorites like NWA 3163 were formed from massive impacts to the lunar surface that ejected material out into space, eventually falling to Earth. These samples can tell us a lot about the Moon and how it formed. In the case of NWA 3163, analysis of its chemical makeup reveals a key difference from lunar samples collected on Moon missions: the meteorite lack iron-nickel grains.

This specimen is a piece of the NWA 3163 meteorite, a small piece of space rock that's traveled all the way from the Moon. Argon dating puts this material at around 1,340,000,000 years old.

The specimen comes in a protected in a gem jar inside a glass-topped riker display case. Each specimen comes complete with an informational card that also serves as certificate of authenticity. You can explore more meteorites in the collection below, including other lunar samples and more. These specimens also pair well with our Lunar Highlands Pendant listed below!

NWA 3163 is a lunar meteorite discovered in Northwest Africa, with sourcing indicating it fell either in Algeria or Mauritania. It is classified as an anorthositic granulitic breccia and can be identified by its pale green fusion crust, a glassy outer layer that forms as a meteorite falls to Earth. These glassy veins radiate inwards to the center of the meteorite along with shock fractures from the stress of atmospheric entry.

Given similarities in its chemical makeup, NWA 3163 is believed to originate from the same meteor as NWA 4483 and NWA 4881. Together these meteorites are poikiloblastic recrystallized breccias, making them composites of a number of different materials. The base mineral is plagioclase (70%), a type of feldspar, surrounding grains of pyroxene (20%) and olivine (10%). 

During the intense heat of atmosphere entry, the plagioclase was heated and became maskelynite, a dark-colored glass that preserves the impression of the meteorite's fall to Earth. Based on the rate of maskelynization, scientists can speculate on the meteorite’s journey from the Moon to the Earth: what the original rock looked like, and how its impact transformed it. Typically, pyroxene and olivine are not melted in the same way during a fall, being distinct from the plagioclase matrix.

Along with its associated meteorites, NWA 3163 is the largest sample of granulitic lunar crust found on Earth. Given its chemical composition, it would appear that NWA 3163 originated in a different region of the Moon than samples found by the Apollo and Luna missions, as it lacks iron-nickel grains found in many of those samples. 

Unfortunately, the stresses of atmospheric entry can wear away mineralogical traces from the lunar surface. What can be gleaned from NWA 3163 is of great importance in understanding the Moon’s crust, which in turn tells us something about the Moon’s formation and previous volcanic activity.

Over billions of years, the outer layer of the Moon has taken a beating from meteorite impacts of its own. Without an atmosphere like on Earth, these impactors do not burn up or break apart which causes major damage to the surface. The pieces of rock and dust that are scattered after an impact are known as the regolith, and over time this material has covered the entire surface of the moon in a layer of loose sediments. 

Most meteorites from the Moon are made up of the lunar regolith, which can be ejected out of the Moon’s gravitational pull during a particularly strong impact event. This material is then drawn into Earth’s gravity and becomes a meteorite of its own.

Lunar meteorites like NWA 3163 play an important role in understanding the formation of the Moon and other bodies in our solar system. The minerals found within them suggest the presence of igneous rocks, which is evidence of the Moon’s formation through an impact event on Earth. Such a powerful impactor would have given off enough heat to create lava oceans, which would then cool into the rocks found in meteorites today.