Who wants to buy a piece of Mars?
In the end, the long-dead dinosaur outperformed the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth.
At Sotheby's on Wednesday , an exhibition-ready, mounted skeleton of a 150-million-year-old dinosaur—a juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis—sold for $30.5 million (including fees and costs), far exceeding its estimate of $6 million. Meanwhile, the Mars-originating, 54-pound meteorite named NWA 16788 sold for $5.3 million—in sluggish bidding, without fees and costs included, it fetched just $300,000 over its upper estimate of $4 million. Still, it remains the most valuable meteorite ever sold at auction.
The Ceratosaurus, dating from the late Jurassic Period and originally found in Bone Cabin Quarry, Wyoming in 1996, measures around 6 feet 3 inches in height, and 10 feet 8 inches in length. Consisting of 139 original fossil bone elements with additional sculpted materials, the skeleton has a virtually complete skull and 43 present teeth. Collectors from 37 countries bid for it.
Also among the 122 objects up for auction on Wednesday was the largest-known lunar sphere—at $825,500 setting the record for most valuable lunar meteorite ever sold at auction, and taking its place as the second most valuable meteorite ever sold at auction after the Martian meteorite. NWA 16788, The Largest Piece of Mars on Earth, est. $2,000,000-$4,000,000 is featured during Sotheby's "Geek Week" Sales in New York, NY, July 8, 2025 Photography by Efren Landaos/Sipa USA, AP Images
The original LED sign from SEGA's The Lost World: Jurassic Park Light Gun Arcade Game sold for around $20,000, the skull of a Pachycephalosaurus for $1.8 million, a Neanderthal tool set dated to around 400,000 years ago for $57,150, and the skeleton of a large cave bear found in Eastern Europe for $35,560.
Cassandra Hatton, Vice Chairman, Global Head, Science & Natural History, Sotheby's, said: 'These stellar results underscore a deep and enduring fascination and respect for the natural world—from the farthest reaches of space to the ancient depths of the Earth. What draws collectors is more than just a passion for science; it's a deep-seated curiosity about the forces that have shaped our planet and beyond.'
(Let's give Ceratoraurus a hand) A hot market for dinos
The winning, as yet anonymous, buyer of the Ceratosaurus intends to loan it to an institution, 'as is fitting for a specimen of this rarity and importance,' Sotheby's said in a statement.
'Whether they will reveal their identity is not something I have the answer to,' Hatton told National Geographic, adding that she wasn't surprised the Ceratosaurus had commanded such a high price. 'It's a beautiful fossil, rare and important. I think it more than deserves the price it sold for.' Detail of the piece of Mars being auctioned off at Sotheby's 'Geek Week.' Photograph Courtesy of Sotheby's
The bidding on the meteorite, Hatton said, had been slower because buyers were more tentative around something that has not had a comparable antecedent in the market. 'In the absence of a bidding precedent, you're going to look at the behavior of the other bidders,' she said. 'No one wants to be the person to make the first move.' In time, buyers may become as enthusiastic over meteorites as they are for dinosaur fossils and bones, Hatton said.
Last year at Sotheby's, billionaire Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of hedge fund Citadel, successfully bid $44.6 million for a 150 million-year-old, 11-foot tall, 27-foot long stegosaurus skeleton, named 'Apex'—the most valuable fossil ever sold at auction. It had been only expected to fetch $6 million.
Some have voiced concern over the high-priced market. Andre LuJan, president of the Association of Applied Paleontology, told The New York Times that the increasing prices of leases for land where such finds were made were harming both academic research and commercial operators.
(Odd Martian meteorites traced back to largest volcanic structure in the solar system)
Hatton said both landowners and people who do the excavations should be paid 'properly' for their part in fossil discoveries—traditionally both parties have been 'cheated' in the process, she said.
It was important to 'diversify' the types of fossils coming to market, Hatton told National Geographic, as nuances within the field—'the Stegosaurus market is different to the T. rex market, which is different to the Ceratosaurus market'—inform not just pricing models, but such matters as how museums calculate insurance values. The largest piece of Mars on Earth
The 'incredibly rare' NWA 16788 meteorite measures 14¾ x 11 x 6 inches and was apparently blown off the surface of Mars, then traveled the 140 million miles to Earth, crashing into the Sahara.
Classified as an olivine-microgabbroic shergottite, a type of Martian rock formed from the slow cooling of Martian magma, it was discovered by a meteorite hunter in Niger's remote Agadez region in November 2023. Pieces of Mars are 'unbelievably rare,' Sotheby's said—of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites, only 400 are Martian meteorites.
'This Martian meteorite is the largest piece of Mars we have ever found by a long shot,' Hatton told the AP . 'So it's more than double the size of what we previously thought was the largest piece of Mars.'
NWA 16788 is approximately 70 percent larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth, and covered in a reddish-brown fusion crust, giving it 'a Martian hue.' Sotheby's said the meteorite had endured 'minimal terrestrial weathering,' and was 'a likely a relative newcomer here on Earth, having fallen from outer space rather recently.'
Prior to landing at Sotheby's, NWA 16788 was exhibited at the Italian Space Agency in Rome in 2024 and in a private gallery in Arezzo, Tuscany.
(Meteorites on Earth may be from an ancient crater on Mars)
On Thursday afternoon, the final sale of Geek Week will feature what Sotheby's says is 'the finest operational Apple-1 computer in existence,' from the first batch of 50 hand built by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in 1976. The estimated auction price stands between $400,000 and $600,000.
Hatton declined to say what buyers could expect to bid on at Geek Week 2026.
'Space exploration was my first auction and my first passion,' she told National Geographic. 'I love the history of science and technology, the manuscripts, books, and Enigma machines. It's so great to get these objects in, and to tell their individual stories.'
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