A bag of lunar dust collected by Neil Armstrong fetched $1.8 million dollars during an auction Thursday.
The artifact from the Apollo 11 mission was misidentified and sold at an online government auction in 2015 for $995. It was Initially stolen from a space museum in Kansas but seized and handed over to NASA.
NASA, apparently mistook it for another space bag that did not contain moon dust. It was eventually put up for auction and purchased by Nancy Lee Carlson, of Chicago, in February 2015.
#AuctionUpdate: Lunar Bag carried on the #Apollo11 mission, makes history for the second time, selling for $1.8m #SothebysInSpace pic.twitter.com/7kzcpvvGiH
— Sotheby’s (@Sothebys) July 20, 2017
Carlson sparked a year-long legal battle against NASA after she sent the bag for testing to the Johnson Space Center and they refused to return it after they realized what had happened. A federal judge in December ruled that the priceless national treasure was legally Carlson’s property.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Marten in Wichita, Kan., in his decision said that the artifacts shouldn’t have gone up for auction, but ruled he didn’t have the authority to reverse the sale. and ordered the government to return it.
The artifact, which had a pre-sale estimate between $2 and $4 million dollars, sold Thursday at Sotheby’s auction in New York City of items related to space voyages.
Thursday marks the 48th anniversary of Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin becoming the first men to walk on the moon.
