Largest Mars rock found on Earth sees $4.3M bid at at Sotheby's auction
The Martian rock, known as NWA 16788, weighs more than 54 pounds, is nearly 15 inches long and is 70% larger than the next biggest piece of Mars that has been recovered, according to the auction house.
Sotheby's said the piece broke from the surface of Mars following a recent asteroid strike and traveled more than 140 million miles across the Solar System.
MORE: Stegosaurus skeleton, nicknamed 'Apex,' sells for record $44.6M at Sotheby's auction
It crashed in the Sahara Desert in the Agadez region of Nigeria and was found by a meteorite hunter in November 2023, Sotheby's said.
"This is the largest piece of Mars on planet Earth. The odds of this getting from there to here are astronomically small," Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman of science and natural history at Sotheby's, said in a video posted online. "Remember that approximately 70% of Earth's surface is covered in water. So we're incredibly lucky that this landed on dry land instead of the middle of the ocean where we could actually find it."
The original bid was $4.3 million. With fees and additional costs, the total price of the rock increases to about $5.3 million, according to the auction house.
The auction house said the reddish brown rock is "unbelievably rare" because meteorites from Mars make up just 400 of the 77,000 officially recognized meteorites. According to Sotheby's, the rock that was sold represents 6.5% of all Martian material currently on Earth.
Hatton said a sample of the rock was sent to a specialized laboratory to be tested for Maskelynite glass, which is only found in meteorites.
Testing determined the rock is an olivine-gabbroic shergottite, which is a relatively new type of Martian meteorite, according to an April 2024 report from researchers the U.S. and Canada. It was formed from the as magma on Mars slowly cooled, Sotheby's said, and contains materials such as olivine, which is also found in Earth's upper mantle.
"This isn't just a miraculous find, but a massive data set that can help us unlock the secrets of our neighbor, the red planet," Hatton said.
MORE: Stegosaurus skeleton, nicknamed 'Apex,' sells for record $44.6M at Sotheby's auction
Prior to going up for auction at Sotheby's, the rock was in a public exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome during the 2024 European Researchers' Night and in a private gallery in Arezzo, Tuscany.
It's unclear who the current owner is and if the Martian rock will be in a public or a private collection.
Also up for auction was a Ceratosaurus skeleton from the late Jurassic period, about 154 to 149 million years ago, which was sold for $26 million, and the skull of a Pachycephalosaurus from the late Cretaceous period 72 million to 66 million years ago for $1.4 million.
Wednesday's auction, containing 122 items, is part of Sotheby's Geek Week, which holds sales for items related to natural history, the history of science and technology, and space exploration.
Among the items up for sale on Thursday, the final day of Geek Week, include a first generation of Apple-1 computer from the first batch of 50 built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
A Mars rock was expected to sell at auction for $4 million. The final bid was for more
The largest piece of Mars to ever make its way to Earth is now also the most valuable meteorite in the world. A chunk of the Martian surface that at some point crashed into Earth following an unlikely cosmic journey sold Wednesday, July 16 to an anonymous bidder for a record $5.3 million at a Sotheby's New York auction. The final price tag, which came after various fees and costs were added, is the most any meteorite of any origin has ever sold for at auction, Sotheby's said in a post on social media site X. The sale also surpasses the $2-4 million the Mars rock was expected to fetch. What is the Mars rock? The large space rock, which has the scientific name of NWA 16788, had its Martian origins validated by the Meteoritical Society, which included it in its Meteoritical Bulletin, the global journal of record for meteor-related science. The meteorite was previously on exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome and at a private gallery in Arezzo, Italy, in Tuscany, before it landed in Sotheby's auction. Mars rock sells for $5.3 million: Who bought it? Marketed by Sotheby's as "the largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth," the cosmic object was expected to sell for up to $4 million. The final bid was $4.3 million. The official final sale price was then about $5.3 million after various fees and costs were added, multiple outlets reported, including the Associated Press and ABC News. Sotheby's, a British-founded auctioneer of art and collectibles based in New York City, auctioned off the meteorite, along with more than 100 other items, Wednesday, July 16. Sotheby's has not publicly identified the buyer. What are meteorites? Rocks in space are known as meteoroids. If those space rocks enter Earth's atmosphere, they become meteors that streak across the sky in events colloquially referred to as "shooting stars." Meteors – or fragments of them – that survive their atmospheric trip and land on the surface without burning up become meteorites, according to NASA. Martian meteorite is largest on Earth: How big is it? The Martian meteorite is 54 pounds, or about the weight of a standard bag of cement. Measuring nearly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches, the space rock is approximately 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth. In fact, it is so large that it represents approximately 6.5% of all Martian material ever found on Earth. How did Martian space rock get to Earth? NWA 16788 was discovered Nov. 16, 2023, by a meteorite hunter in Niger's remote Agadez region in the Sahara Desert. Featuring an unmistakable reddish Martian hue, NWA 16788's internal composition suggests it was blasted from the surface of Mars by a powerful asteroid strike. Intense enough to turn some of the meteorite's minerals into glass, the asteroid strike sent the rock hurtling through space, where it miraculously made it through Earth's atmosphere without burning up, Sotheby's said in an auction house video. Because the meteorite shows signs of minimal Earthly weathering, and its chemical makeup has not significantly changed, experts believe it reached our planet in recent years. On a planet mostly covered in water, discovering meteorites on land is incredibly rare. And Mars meteorites are even more elusive on Earth. Of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites, only 400 are Martian meteorites, according to Sotheby's. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mars rock auction $5.3 million bid surpasses Sotheby's expectations Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Meteorite that shot through roof of Henry County home was moving at speed of sound, scientist says
A planetary scientist shared new insights into the meteorite that crashed into a Georgia home in June. Speaking with Channel 2's Linda Stouffer, R. Scott Harris, a planetary geologist, gave new details about the meteorite fragments he's studying. The flash in the Georgia sky in June, described by witnesses as a fireball, traveled hundreds of millions of miles through space before entering the Earth's atmosphere, eventually crashing into a home. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] 'This one went through a house in McDonough, and the whole mass, we estimate, was probably like the size of a large cherry tomato,' Harris said. 'We're talking about something more than twice the diameter of a .50 caliber bullet coming through at least, but maybe greater than the speeds of our highest performance military rifles. And so it if had hit a person, we would not be having a fun conversation.' RELATED STORIES: Meteorite hunters searching for fragments in Henry County 'Fireball' in the sky seen across metro Atlanta What did you see falling through the sky? A meteor or meteorite? 'It was really, really scary': People across metro in shock as fireball falls from the sky Harris studies the way objects from space hit planetary surfaces and works as a researcher with the University of Georgia. Stouffer learned the fireball that exploded into the Georgia sky last month will now be called the McDonough meteorite. He said the black portion of the meteorite fragments would be from the outside of it, where it was freshly exposed to the light of the sun. 'Never seen the light of day, light of our sun over 4.5 billion years,' Harris said. Harris told Stouffer he believes that when the fireball 'detonated,' it was flying at about the speed of sound, including when it flew into a house in Henry County. 'Absolutely clean shot, through the roof, through the insulation, through the ceiling,' Harris said. 'There's about a third that is sort of missing, not really missing but pulverized to dust.' Using an electron microscope, Harris analyzed the materials in the fragments to see what minerals and metals may have been in the object. 'You see the bright objects here are the metal and metal sulfides,' Harris explained, showing the scans and images from the analysis. 'Mostly minerals that you might find here on Earth.' This meteorite contains metal, and minerals including olivine (also known as peridot) and feldspars. 'This is a type of meteorite called an ordinary chondrite,' Harris said. One of the larger fragment pieces is at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville. Staff there say they're working to bring it onto display so you can see it later this year. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
2 billion-year-old moon rock found in Africa reveals secret lunar history
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A meteorite that fell from the moon and was found in Africa is a rare volcanic rock dating from a time period in lunar history that scientists know little about. The 311-gram space rock was discovered in 2023 and is known as the Northwest Africa 16286 meteorite — and based on the decay of the lead isotopes that it contains, its formation has been dated to about 2.35 billion years ago. "Its age and composition show that volcanic activity continued on the moon throughout this timespan, and our analysis suggests an ongoing heat-generation process within the moon, potentially from radiogenic elements decaying and producing heat over a long period," said lead researcher Joshua Snape of the University of Manchester in a statement. The meteorite is an important piece in the jigsaw that is the moon's history, filling-in an almost billion-year-long gap in our knowledge. The meteorite is much younger than samples brought back to Earth by NASA's Apollo missions, the Soviet Union's Luna missions and China's Chang'e 6 mission, all of which range between 3.1 billion and 4.3 billion years old, but older than the 1.9-billion-year-old rocks returned by Chang'e 5. Crucially, meteorite 16286 has a volcanic origin, with geochemical analysis showing that it formed when a lava flow from deep within the moon vented onto the surface and solidified. It contains relatively large crystals of a mineral called olivine, moderate levels of titanium and high levels of potassium. Its lead isotopes also point to a volcanic source deep underground that has an unusually high uranium-to-lead ratio (the lead being a decay product of uranium). This abundance of uranium, and the heat it produced as it underwent radioactive decay, is a potential clue as to what was keeping volcanism going a billion years after the moon's main bouts of volcanism had ceased. There are only 31 volcanic lunar rocks that have been found on Earth in the form of meteorites, and meteorite 16286 is by far the youngest. "Moon rocks are rare, so it's interesting when we get something that stands out and looks different to everything else," said Snape. The meteorite is more evidence that volcanism continued throughout this period on the moon; Chang'e 5 has found such evidence in its samples from the moon's farside of volcanism in the past 123 million years. Together, these discoveries are transforming what we thought we thought we knew about the moon's volcanism and how the moon has remained geologically active, at least in bursts, almost to the present day. RELATED STORIES — Why is the moon's far side so weird? China's lunar sample-return mission may have figured it out — Volcanoes shaped the moon from the inside out, scientists find: 'Our team was genuinely puzzled' — NASA robot digs up simulated moon rocks | Space photo of the day for June 13, 2025 The next step is to pinpoint the meteorite's origin on the moon: likely a crater blasted into the surface by an impact that ejected the meteorite long ago. Once identified, it will be a prime location for a future sample-return mission to learn more about lunar volcanism during this little-known period, from which so few samples exist. Snape presented the findings at the world's premier geochemistry meeting, the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague held between July 6 and July 11. Solve the daily Crossword
