Silver Twenty-five Grams 2010 Meteorite HAH 280, Coin from Cook Islands - detailed information

The Cook Islands, a sovereign state in free association with New Zealand, uses two official legal tender currencies. The New Zealand Dollar circulates in parallel with the local Cook Islands Dollar; at the same time, the government also authorises many legal tender coins in the Cook Islands Dollar currency for collector's purposes.

Collector coins are dedicated to historical or general popular culture themes not related to the country itself. Many of them are in bullion sizes based on the troy ounce, but some are "metric", like twenty-five grams (25g) of silver.

This coin featuring Meteorite HAH 280 is part of the Meteorite Impacts collection which is issued in a number of different countries; all coins in it have an embedded original piece of the specific meteorite.

The meteorite Hammadah al Hamra 280 (HAH 280) was found in the year 2000 in Jabal al Gharb in the Hammadah al Hamra region in Libya. 280 Stands for the number of cataloged meteorites found in this area.

As a so-called carbonaceous chondrite, the HAH 280 is classified in the very rare CK4 group. The scientific analysis confirms which are about 700 million years older than our 4,5 billion-year-old solar system.

The meteorite HAH 280 originates from the so-called asteroid-belt. Today it is generally assumed that this belt arose from a primordial solar nebula. Researches have shown that in CK4 meteorites up to 220 amino acids exist. These provide the basis for the proteins, the components of the cells. Therefore speculations present themselves that possibly exactly such meteorites like the HAH 280 could have brought the basis for life on Earth!