While billionaires are battling it out in a race to colonise the moon, mere stratospherically rich mortals on Earth were able to grab a small slice of space rock for themselves on Wednesday at Christie's annual sale of rare and unusual meteorites. From a report: Star-gazers and Meteorite enthusiasts bid frantically for fragments of the "oldest matter humankind can touch" -- as the auction house put it -- while other objects such as a comet-cracked kennel from Costa Rica sold for tens of thousands of dollars. A 15g fragment of the Winchcombe meteorite, which briefly became Britain's most coveted rock after the bright fireball was seen blazing across the sky over the Cotswold town last year, sold for $30,200, while a smaller 1.7g fragment fetched $12,600. According to the Christie's catalogue of the 66-lot Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and other Rare Meteorites" sale, only 602g of Winchcombe was ever found -- with 90% of the material now housed in the UK's national collection, curated by London's Natural History Museum. Among the more usual items for sale was a dog house hit by a meteorite which crashed through the tin roof in April 2019 in Aguas Zarcas, Costa Rica. But while it was expected to sell for as much as $300,000, after all it boasted a seven-inch hole which "marks where the meteorite punctured the roof," it finally sold for $44,100.

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