A Rock That Fell From the Sky 4.5 Billion Years Ago

Before Earth had oceans. Before life existed. Before the continents took shape — this rock was already ancient. Forged in the violent early solar system, Northwest Africa 14886 survived a catastrophic collision that melted and shattered its parent asteroid, then drifted through space for eons before plummeting through our atmosphere and landing in the Sahara Desert of Morocco.

Today, it sits in your hands.

What Makes NWA 14886 Extraordinary

This is not just any meteorite. NWA 14886 is officially classified as an L3-melt breccia — one of the rarest subtypes in meteoritics. Of the tens of thousands of meteorites catalogued by the Meteoritical Society, only 5 in the entire world carry this classification. You are looking at one of them.

The dark, brooding surface tells the story of an ancient catastrophe: a hypervelocity impact so powerful it partially melted the rock, creating a chaotic mosaic of pristine type 3 chondrule clasts — some of the most primitive, unaltered material in the solar system — locked inside a glassy shock-melt matrix. Under a microscope, you can see FeNi metal and sulfide spherules frozen mid-flight, chondrules crosscut by shock veins, and mineral fragments caught in the act of dissolving into the melt. It is geology and violence and time, all compressed into 65.9 grams.

Specimen Specifications

• Official Name: Northwest Africa 14886 (NWA 14886)
• Classification: Ordinary Chondrite — L3-melt breccia
• This piece: Main Mass — 65.9 g
• Dimensions: 55 × 51 × 19 mm
• Total known mass: 102 g (type specimen 20.4 g held at Museum für Naturkunde Berlin)
• Year found: 2021, Talsint, Morocco
• Approved: 9 May 2022 — Meteoritical Bulletin MB 111 (2023)

Scientific Data

• Shock stage: S3
• Weathering grade: W2
• Magnetic susceptibility (log χ): 4.67
• Fayalite: 14.4 ± 8.2 mol% (n=18)
• Ferrosilite: 12.0 ± 7.3 mol% (n=14)
• Wollastonite: 0.6 ± 0.2 mol% (n=14)
• Classifier: A. Greshake, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MNB)
• L-group confirmed by: Magnetic susceptibility — Rochette et al., Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 38, 251–268 (2003)

Provenance & Authenticity

Purchased directly from a meteorite dealer in Talsint, Morocco in December 2021. Officially registered with the Meteoritical Society and published in Meteoritical Bulletin MB 111. This is the main mass — the largest single piece of NWA 14886 available outside of the institutional type specimen. No fusion crust is present; the exterior is a dark brownish matrix that reflects the specimen's ancient, unweathered interior structure.