Meteorite Slice Var. Stony Iron, pallasite

This meteorite slice comes off of the Fukang stony iron pallasite, which was found in 2000 in the Gobi Desert in China. The meteorite weighed about 1003 kgs. It is believed to be 4.5 billion years old. It is a nickel-iron with encapsulated olivine crystals that formed inside the metal. This piece is a full 3 mm thick, which is substantial. It has been cut with a diamond infused wire, else the olivine crystals shatter if sawing with a conventional saw blade. The slice was polished and then later etched with Nitric acid. The acid eats away the top layer of iron, exposing the underlying Widmanstatten pattern within the metal that only occurs in meteorites. I enjoy seeing people's eyes light up when they hold a pallasite slice, and let their imaginations grab hold of the idea this is probably as old as the solar system, and that it spent most of that time floating in space. This slice has a generous amount of olivine in it, it weighs 25.25 grams.