Soviet-era moon fragments shoot for the stars at sale

NEW YORK - Wealthy space buffs will have the chance to own three small particles of lunar matter when what Sotheby's describes as the only known documented "moon rocks" to be legally available for private ownership hit the auction block in November.

Sotheby's said on Tuesday it expects the fragments, retrieved from the moon by a Soviet space mission in 1970, could fetch between $700,000 to $1 million at the Nov 29 auction in New York.

The pieces - a basalt fragment, similar to most of the Earth's volcanic rock, and bits of surface debris known as regolith - are being sold by an unidentified private US collector who purchased them in 1993.