Aletai meteorite spheres are shaped from authentic material of the Aletai iron meteorite, which was discovered in 1898 in the Altay region of Xinjiang, northwest China. This meteorite belongs to the coarse octahedrite class and originated more than 4.5 billion years ago inside the metallic core of a large asteroid. Once polished, the spheres are chemically etched to reveal the Widmanstätten pattern, a natural nickel-iron crystal structure formed during extremely slow cooling in space.
The etched surface of each sphere reveals a complex lattice of metallic crystal bands. These structures formed while the parent asteroid cooled by only a few degrees per million years. The result is a preserved internal structure from the earliest stages of solar system formation, making Aletai meteorite spheres prized among collectors and researchers alike.