Milkyway Galaxy, Vesta asteroid, ca. 4 billion years old. Wonderful and visually stunning thin cut slab of a portion of this asteroid that fell to earth in the last 50,000 years. This asteroid is part of the asteroid belt and they occasionally collide sending debris toward earth. This slab features a nickel iron base infused with translucent diogenite crystals. Vesta (minor-planet designation: 4 Vesta) is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of 525 kilometers (326 miles). … Debris from these events has fallen to Earth as howardite–eucrite–diogenite (HED) meteorites, which have been a rich source of information about Vesta. Size: 7.2″ L x 5.125″ W (18.3 cm x 13 cm)
