Latest news with #Sahara
Zawya
2 days ago
- Politics
- Zawya
Portugal Fully Supports Autonomy Initiative as Most Serious, Credible & Constructive Basis to Settle Moroccan Sahara Dispute
As part of the international momentum generated under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God assist Him, in support of Morocco's sovereignty over its Sahara and the Autonomy Plan, the Portuguese Republic expresses "its full support for the Moroccan autonomy initiative as the most serious, credible and constructive basis to settle this dispute." This position was expressed in the Joint Statement signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, Mr. Nasser Bourita, and the Portuguese Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, following their meeting on Tuesday in Lisbon. Portugal recognizes the importance of this issue for Morocco, as well as the serious and credible efforts undertaken by the Kingdom within the framework of the United Nations to achieve a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, the Joint statement notes. The two ministers reaffirmed their support for UN Security Council Resolution 2756, which emphasizes the role and responsibility of the parties in seeking a realistic, pragmatic and lasting political solution based on compromise, the document adds. Through its new stance, Portugal sends a clear message reflecting its adherence to the international consensus around Morocco's autonomy Plan, in line with the strong international dynamic driven by His Majesty King Mohammed VI. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Kingdom of Morocco - Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
CID books Sahara India chief's wife, sons over ‘illegal' land sale
Ranchi: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has registered a case against late Sahara chairman 's wife Swapna, her sons Susanto and Simanto, and nine others for alleged illegal sale of land purchased with investors' funds. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now CID sources on Monday said that the case has been registered. Among the accused persons are former chairman late Subrata Roy's wife Swapna Roy, her sons Susanto Roy and Simato Roy, relative Jaybrat Roy, company personnel O P Srivastava and Neeraj Kumar Pal, Sanjiv Kumar, Jitendra Kumar, Shyam Veer Singh ,Pawan Kumar, Tapas Rai and other directors and partners. Nagendra Kumar of Dhanbad had filed a complaint with CID accusing of cheating its shareholders in Jharkhand of thousands of crores of rupees. The CID formed a special investigation team and based on its finding, registered the FIR on July 11. The matter, however, has come to light now. Talking to TOI on Monday, CID IG Sudarshan Mandal said, "A DSP rank officer has been appointed to investigate the case. Soon the accused would be issued notices for questioning and collection of evidences in the case." According to the FIR, the company has illegally sold land plots in Patna and Begusarai in Bihar and Bokaro in Jharkhand in violation of the Supreme Court order. Moreover, instead of depositing the proceeds with Security Exchange Board of India the money was used for own consumption. Notably, according to report, around 30,000 people of Jharkhand had invested in the Sahara India. Claims amounting to around Rs 400 crore have been made by them against the company. Talking to an electronic media, DGP Gupta said, "There are two aspects in the entire Sahara issue — first is to return lost money of the victims and second to arrest culprits. We can assure that Jharkhand police will nab every accused in Sahara scam case, chargesheet them and jail them." He added that the Supreme Court in 2011 had ordered Sahara India to provide list of all its properties barring it to sell any of them. In case of the sale, the proceeds should go back to those who lost money in its scam.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Saddened as World's Largest Mars Rock Is Sold at Auction
A rock from Mars that traveled tens if not hundreds of millions of miles before improbably landing on our planet's surface has found its final resting place: the private collection of some secretive plutocrat, whose identity has not been revealed to us members of the nosy public. At roughly 54 pounds, NWA 16788, as it's been dubbed, is by far the largest known rock we have from the Red Planet — the runner up in the category is barely half that weight — and is one of the only 400 meteorites confirmed to be of Martian origin ever found, according to a database maintained by the Meteoritical Society. That such a large portion survived a crash landing on Earth makes it an incredibly valuable object to scientists. On Wednesday, the rock was bought at an auction at Sotheby's in New York for $5.3 million. It's now the most expensive meteorite ever sold, according to the luxury items broker. "You get close to it, you can feel like you're looking at the planet," Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby's, told the Washington Post. "This really looks like a piece of Mars, whereas pretty much every other Martian meteorite you see is going to just kind of look like a little rock." Discovered in November 2023 by a meteorite hunter scouring a remote region of Niger, an analysis determined that NWA 16788 was likely catapulted into space by another, much larger meteor smashing into Mars, according to CNN. The Martian surface is pockmarked with countless scars documenting encounters like these. Hatton declined to reveal who the buyer of the huge rock was. While we can't say for certain what will happen to it, or what the anonymous buyer's intentions are, some scientists aren't happy with the idea of this ultra-rare space rock being locked away, or even being put up for sale in the first place. "It would be a shame if it disappeared into the vault of an oligarch. It belongs in a museum, where it can be studied, and where it can be enjoyed by children and families and the public at large," Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, told CNN before the rock was sold. Meteorites "carry information about the history of the solar system that cannot be learned any other way," Paul Asimow, professor of geology and geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology, told WaPo. More streetwise scientists argue, however, that this is what it takes to keep the lights on, so to speak. "Ultimately, if there was no market for searching, collecting and selling meteorites, we would not have anywhere near as many in our collections — and this drives the science!" Julia Cartwright, a planetary scientist at the University of Leicester in England, told CNN. For scientists whining about losing access to this massive Mars slab, Hatton recommends they consult with the literal crumb of evidence that's been graciously left behind for them to examine, preserved at the Purple Mountain Observatory in China. "A sample has been taken and analyzed and published in the meteoritical bulletin, so they could go and get that," Hatton told More on Mars: Trump Wants to Shut Down Several Perfectly Good Spacecraft Orbiting Mars for No Reason Solve the daily Crossword
Telegraph
7 days ago
- Science
- Telegraph
‘Incredibly rare' Mars rock sells for £3.2m
An 'incredibly rare' piece of Mars has sold for £3.2 million at a New York auction after being found in the Sahara desert. The 54lb (24.5kg) meteorite is the largest piece of Mars on Earth. It was ejected from the Martian surface by a massive asteroid strike and then journeyed 140 million miles through space before hurtling through Earth's atmosphere and crashing in Niger. A meteorite hunter then found the 15-inch rock, which is called NWA 16788, in Niger's Agadez region in November 2023. Cassandra Hatton, vice-chairman of science and natural history at Sotheby 's, which sold the meteorite, said: 'This is the largest piece of Mars on planet Earth. 'The odds of this getting from there to here are astronomically small,' she said in a video posted online. 'Remember that approximately 70 per cent 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.' Only about 400 Martian meteorites have ever been found on Earth, and NWA 16788 accounts for about seven per cent of all Martian material currently known here. Sotheby's described the find as an 'incredibly rare discovery'. NWA 16788 is 'covered in a reddish-brown fusion crust giving it an unmistakable Martian hue,' according to the auction catalogue. Around a fifth of the meteorite is made up of a glassy material called Maskelynite, created by the intense heat and pressure produced when Mars was hit by an asteroid. 'Given the severity of impact necessary to eject any material off the Martian surface and into space, researchers believe there are only approximately 19 craters large enough to be the potential origination points for Martian meteorites,' said Sotheby's. A study of the surface has found little 'terrestrial weathering', suggesting the meteorite may not have been on Earth long. 'In other words, NWA 16788 is likely a relative newcomer here on Earth, having fallen from outer space rather recently,' Sotheby's said. Details of the buyer have not been made public and it is not clear where the meteorite will now reside. The rock was sold as part of Sotheby's 'Geek Week' auction, where fossils, mineral deposits, meteorites and other science and natural history exhibits went under the hammer. A Ceratosaurus skeleton from the late Jurassic period sold for £19 ($26m) and the skull of a Pachycephalosaurus sold for £1m ($1.4m).
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Largest chunk of Mars on Earth sells for $5.3 million
The 'Largest Piece of Mars on Earth' just sold at auction for about $5.3 million— $5,296,000, to be exact. Popular Science has reached out to Sotheby's for confirmation of the sale price. The 54-pound rock measures roughly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches. It was part of a Sotheby's natural history auction that also included a juvenile Ceratosaurus dinosaur skeleton and a lunar meteorite. The meteorite is believed to have been blown off the surface of Mars by an asteroid. The chunk of the Red Planet then travelled 140 million miles to Earth, crashing in the Sahara desert. It was discovered by a meteorite hunter in Niger in November 2023. However, it is not completely clear when the meteorite hit Earth. Testing shows that the strike probably happened in recent years, according to Sotheby's. It previously was on exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome. Sotheby's did not disclose the space rock's previous owner. The red, brown and gray rock is roughly 70 percent larger than the next biggest piece of Mars ever found here on Earth. It also makes up nearly 7 percent of all the Martian material currently on our planet, according to Sotheby's. 'There's a big, orbital donut full of battered bits of Mars, launched by cratering events, and the Earth clearly intercepts that stream all the time,' Ralph Harvey, a geochemist who studies plenary materials at Case Western University, tells Popular Science. 'There's really no substitute for 'ground truth,' and the Martian meteorites represent the only known samples from that planet.' Cassandra Hatton, the vice chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby's, told the Associated Press that this Martian meteorite was confirmed to be from the Red Planet in a specialized lab. The sample's chemical make up was compared with Martian meteorites that were discovered in 1967, when the Viking space probe landed on Mars. The official examination found that the now sold rock is an olivine-microgabbroic shergottite. This type of Martian rock was formed by the slow cooling of magma on Mars. Sotheby's says that it has a course-grained texture and the minerals pyroxene and olivine. The auction house estimates that there are only 400 Martian meteorites out of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites that have been discovered on Earth. According to Harvey, recovering samples from any planetary body beyond Earth is challenging enough due to technology, science, and funding. It has only been done about a dozen times, making this material quite precious. Grabbing what we can when it falls is our best bet. 'There are a lot more rocks falling to Earth from space than most people realize; the total mass of meteoritic material is a few tens of thousands of tons per year,' says Harvey. 'From that, maybe 10-20,000 bits will actually be rocks that hit the Earth's surface. It's the equivalent of a softball-sized rock each million square kilometers, and distributed very randomly.' Solve the daily Crossword
