A bag containing traces of moon dust is heading to auction, surrounded by some fallout from a galactic court battle.
The collection bag, used by astronaut Neil Armstrong during the first manned mission to the moon in 1969, will be featured Thursday at a Sotheby's auction in New York City of items related to space voyages. The pre-sale estimate is $2 million to $4 million.
The auction comes on the 48 year anniversary of Armstrong's first steps on the moon with fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
The artifact from the Apollo 11 mission was misidentified and sold at an online government auction. NASA fought to get it back.
In December, a federal judge ruled that it legally belonged to a Chicago-area woman who bought it in 2015 for $995.
Sotheby's declined to identify the seller. However, details of the 2015 purchase were made public during the court case.
Investigators unknowingly hit the moon mother lode in 2003 while searching the garage of a man later convicted of stealing and selling museum artifacts, including some that were on loan from NASA.
with a file from Siobhan Morris