Iron–ung (ungrouped)Vicinity of Taza, Morocco (precise coordinates unknown)

To enable scientists to refer to the unique attributes of a given meteorite, there must be a nomenclature system, and so a committee of scientists name meteorites after the location to which they’ve been “delivered,” (e.g., a city, village, mountain, river, county, etc.). In a desert, where there are few distinguishing geological features, meteorites are named after a grid encompassing a restricted area and are assigned sequential numbers. NWA 859 was found in 2001; it is the 859th meteorite to be catalogued following its recovery in the Northwest African grid of the Sahara Desert. It is also more colloquially known as “Taza.” As a result of atmospheric sculpting during its fiery plunge to Earth, the Taza specimen now offered creates an illusion of still being in flight. The texture of Taza meteorites is rather unusual: it consists of elongated spindles of the low-nickel iron mineral kamacite in a groundmass of fine grains of kamacite and taenite (a high-nickel iron mineral). Although 89% of iron meteorites are members of distinct chemical groups and originate from approximately a dozen different asteroids, the other 11% of recovered iron meteorites are chemically unrelated and originate from unknown parent bodies. Taza is one such “ungrouped” iron, and the sample now offered is the quintessence of a Taza meteorite.