Aletai meteorite Cube - Height: 29 mm - Width: 29 mm - 204 g

This extraordinary cube was made from the Aletai iron meteorite, a celestial body of rare metallic purity, discovered in the desert of the Xinjiang autonomous region in northwestern China. The slab has been carefully cut and polished to highlight one of the most fascinating crystalline structures known in mineralogy: the Widmanstätten pattern. This pattern, unique and unreproducible, forms only in the cores of iron asteroids through a cooling process that lasts millions of years — a process impossible to replicate artificially on Earth.
The Aletai meteorite is named after the eponymous mountain range (Altay Mountains) and was first identified in 1898, but only in the 21st century have some significant discoveries allowed for detailed classification. Today, we know that it is a siderite belonging to group IIIE-an, characterized by high structural stability and a well-balanced content of iron and nickel, with small quantities of phosphides and sulfides sometimes visible as microinclusions.
The visible pattern on this slab is composed of intersecting bands of kamacite and taenite, which alternate to form triangular, blade, and lamella structures, visibly evidence of the internal dynamics of a primordial planetary body. Each section of the meteorite is different from the others, like a fingerprint left in the metal from an unimaginably distant time.

Aletai Meteorite
Type: Siderite (iron meteorite)
Classification: IIIE-an
Composition: iron, nickel, kamacite, taenite
Origin: Xinjiang Region, China (coordinates 45°52'16"N, 90°30'17"E)
Widmanstätten figures