Iron meteorites are cleaned to varying levels. There is really no right or wrong to the amount of cleaning. It is more important that it has been done in a way that is good for the specimen. We never use chemicals to remove rust preferring to remove any loose rust or scale with some elbow grease and a wire brush.

Some are lightly cleaned so that the natural patina remains. A very nice rare type of iron has been recently discovered and it has been cleaned by us so that it retains it natural appearance is Agoudal.

Agoudal Iron Meteorites are a type called a hexahedrite. This means that they have a little less nickel than some of the other irons and are made of just one of the two main nickel-iron mineral that being kamacite.

Now is a great time to obtain Agoudal while the supply is good and the discovery still recent. Most meteorites quickly get harder to obtain as the recovery of new specimens declines. Other irons are cleaned a little more sometimes, and a few require little or no cleaning.

One of the latter type is the Sikhote Alin Meteorite that fell in a tremendous event in over Siberia. These irons come in all sizes and shapes and in two main types. The first type of Sikhote Alin is the flight marked regmaglyph individuals. These are wonderful thumbprinted meteorites that look exactly how one might think all meteorites should look. The second type is the Sikhote Alin shrapnel variety. These are pieces of meteoric metal that have been torn apart by the forces of large masses of the asteroid hitting the ground and exploding.

Both of these types are available from us and are great additions to any meteorite collection. Shape was discussed a little bit earlier but there are several areas of external form to think about when buying meteorites. Here is where personal taste and artistic appeal will be the major concerns. If the specimen is to be displayed then having thumbprints which are called regmaglyphs may be important.

An oriented shape with strong flight marks may be what is wanted. These features add considerably to the cost of some meteorites. With iron meteorites sometimes a very spiny appearance with sharp edges is what buyers want. In other cases it may be the pitting and overall size. Often is is just what the buyer happens to see and appreciate in the specimen. There really is no right or wrong as long as the specimen has been well prepared and maintained.

Stone meteorites are sold as complete stones, as slices and end cuts, and also as broken fragments. Sometimes the buyer may have a choice about the type of specimen for the particular meteorite they will purchase.

The Chelyabinsk Russian Meteorite that so dramatically fell over Russia on February 15, is a great example of a meteorite that is perfect for getting in several different forms. At times it is available for sale as slices, impact melt, fragments and whole individuals.

Sometimes collectors need just a representative piece to fill a slot in their collection. In this case a small slice or fragment is all that is required. A good online catalog will usually have the meteorites organized by family and type with a photograph of the specimen you are buying. Our catalog for instance has a large selection of meteorites of all the groups. Good choices for the beginning collector might be Al Haggounia a EL3 type.

It has been on Earth long enough to be referred to as a paleo meteorite. There are fabulously wealthy and intelligent people who claim that they will become trillionaires from asteroid mining. Personally, I find it easier to imagine the tidal wave as their asteroid splashes down into the ocean, and the price of platinum dropping through the floor as it becomes suddenly and abundantly available.

A future where the metals, rock and water that we mine in space are used in space feels more achievable. Whether that happens soon enough to make the investors of today rich is, I imagine, their big gamble. Elvis for one is convinced that asteroid mining will take place in our lifetime and gave me a top tip on how to become a space millionaire. Andrew Glester is the host of the Physics World podcast and the Cosmic Shed podcast, which explores the way science and storytelling collide.

He is also the co-ordinator of the Space Universities Network, astrondrew. Close search menu Submit search Type to search. Topics Astronomy and space Atomic and molecular Biophysics and bioengineering Condensed matter Culture, history and society Environment and energy Instrumentation and measurement Materials Mathematics and computation Medical physics Optics and photonics Particle and nuclear Quantum. Sign in Register. Enter e-mail address Show Enter password Remember me.

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Enter e-mail address This e-mail address will be used to create your account. Reset your password. Please enter the e-mail address you used to register to reset your password Enter e-mail address. Registration complete. Telescopes and space missions Feature The asteroid trillionaires. Taken from the June issue of Physics World. Want to read more? Register to unlock all the content on the site.

What holds value are tangible things like property, antiques, business that make money, and precious metals. As a co-founder of a start-up focussing on attracting investors to space, research is vital to working out how space commerce will actually play out and how and why to invest. A paradox is that of asteroid mining, and how the low-hanging goodies in the Kuniper belt can be extracted profitably. Right now if you put all the gold above ground together it would fit inside a large house, and maybe a larger house if you included all the un-reported gold.

What happens to the price of gold? What would the long-term, strategic thinking, investors of said Asteroid Mining Venture have to say to their wives when the price of gold halves or is completely decimated, because who knows how many more asteroids riddled with gold are being hauled into position?

No-one yet has the definitive business model for asteroid mining, but we and many others are working on it. Asteroid Mining might be destined to have very little impact on earth economies, but what if a disruptive asteroid miner sees an opportunity in scaling up the availability of the un-available?

There is nothing stopping a successful asteroid resource operation from targeting a sector with a long-term plan, dependent on what can be found in abundance of course. Would that be akin to many centuries ago when the population was a fraction of what it was today, and the wealthy were a handful, not a mass market trading paper instruments when a gold coin was real gold? Labour and property payments could be settled with a currency based on a precious metal, not with promises written on bits of paper; values determined by the ability of your government to enforce one law for the many, while also supporting a subversion of these laws for select others.

Yes it would take a massive inflow of physical gold to make its way into your wallet, but it would be a viable exit to the days of fiat money, and even fractional reserve banking. A bank could be a bank and worth robbing , where true wealth is measured in ounces of gold and not in digital entries.

The disruptive threat of asteroid mining is hard to implement, but in former times the opening of the New World to the old caused empires to rise and others to thieve. History was written, the Middle-Ages came to a close. But the news media is in a crisis of its own. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism is shrinking, yielding to crude prime-time spectacle.

ThePrint has the finest young reporters, columnists and editors working for it. Sustaining journalism of this quality needs smart and thinking people like you to pay for it. Whether you live in India or overseas, you can do it here. Support Our Journalism. But when you pay your state debts by certificates of future gold mining in Psyche this is then a win,.

This title loses the forest through the trees. When the precious metals become no longer precious and commonplace. The fact that is there enough money in the world right now to where no one needs to live in poverty, if the money distributed properly, and rich would still be rich. The biggest problem this earth faces is over population which is totally caused by corruption and totally unnecessary. Obtaining materials from asteroids would only serve to make life better. There are certainly a lot of details like that to take into consideration.

That is a great point to bring up. I offer the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you bring up where the most important thing will be working in honest good faith.