Featured Image Credit: Chiba Institute of Technology
Topics: News, Technology, Space
Charisa Bossinakis
Topics: News, Technology, Space
Samurai katanas are already cool enough because of what those ancient fighters were able to do with them.
However, there's a blade out there that is literally out of this world.
The 'Sword of Heaven’ katana blade is made from an ancient metal meteorite that's billions of years old.
This weapon would make the Kill Bill Hanzo Sword look like child’s play.
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The Tentetsutou, or ‘Sword of Heaven’, is a powerful katana created by Japanese master swordsmith Yoshindo Yoshiwara.
CNET reports that Yoshiwara made the weapon from a vast Gibeon iron meteorite that fell in prehistoric times in Namibia.
Gibeon meteorites come from broken asteroid fragments or an exploded star created around four billion years ago.
For those of you wanting to see the katana blade in person, you’ll have to pay Japan a visit, as the blade is currently on display at the Chiba Institute of Technology.
"It is thought that the first human encounters with iron were with iron meteorites, and the Sword of Heaven truly symbolises the relationship between human technology and space," the Chiba Institute notes, as per CNET.
However, the Sword of Heaven is part of the long list of impressive blades forged from meteorites.
According to Ripleys, Mughal Emperor Jahangir had the hefty rock carved into a pair of swords and a dagger.
Gifted to him by a tax collector - I mean, only fitting - the man said that when they dug up the meteorite, the ground instantly grew hot, and the stone was molten.
His men had to wait for the surface to cool before removing it.
Historian James Sowerby also presented a meteorite sword to Czar Alexander I of Russia. However, it didn't take long for the Emperor to lose it for years before finding it again.
Yikes, you wouldn’t want that to fall into the wrong hands.
Also, as part of the Field Museum’s exhibit, First Kings of Europe in Chicago, make sure you keep your eyes peeled for a Bronze Age sword that’s said to be around 3,000 years old.
The sword was first discovered in the 1930s in the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary, and it’s believed to have ended up there as part of a ritual for the dead.
According to CNET, the museum initially believed the sword to be a replica; however, when Field Museum scientists ran the sword under an X-ray fluorescence detector, it turned out to be the real deal.
Bill Parkinson, a curator of anthropology at the museum who helped create the upcoming First Kings of Europe exhibition, said in a statement: “Usually this story goes the other way round.
“What we think is an original turns out to be a fake.”