New York, New York - US pop art star Jeff Koons has announced plans to send sculptures to the moon and sell NFTs to go with them. Someone just had to go one bigger than the block of gold in Central Park stunt...

As part of Koons' "Moon Phases" project, a group of sculptures by the artist is set to fly to the moon later this year, the Pace Gallery has announced.

Each physical sculpture has a corresponding unique digital work with an NFT to prove its authenticity. The sculptures are set to make a lunar landing after being launched from the US Kennedy Space Center in a fully autonomous mission.

"Space explorations have given us a perspective of our ability to transcend worldly constraints," Koons, who is best known around the world for oversized sculptures such as his balloon dog, was quoted as saying.

"These ideas are central to my NFT project, which can be understood as a continuation and celebration of humanity's aspirational accomplishments within and beyond our own planet."

The emerging technology of NFTs has become a major commodity on the international art scene. They typically are meant to provide digital certificates of authenticity, proving ownership of some virtual item such as a meme, digital artwork, or tweet.

Although there can be any number of identical copies of an object, only one NFT can be considered the true original and can thus have only one owner (mostly).