Latest news with #meteorite
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
The largest Mars rock on Earth is up for auction in NYC — it could be yours for $4 million (or more)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. NEW YORK CITY — Tucked away in a building on the corner of 72nd Street and York Avenue in Lenox Hill, an extraterrestrial marvel sits sturdily on a mirrored pedestal. It's the largest Mars rock on planet Earth — and it turns out its 54-pound (25-kilogram), ashy, terracotta structure isn't as priceless as you'd expect. This Mars rock is up for auction at Sotheby's in New York City this week, which is why it's currently on display in the Upper East Side. As of now, it's expected to sell for between $2 million and $4 million, but it could very well sell for far more. "At the end of the day, it's the bidders who tell us what things are worth, not me, not anyone else. The estimates are just there to give people an indication," Cassandra Hatton, the vice chairman of science and natural history at Sotheby's, told "Last summer, I sold the Stegosaurus 'Apex.' For the Stegosaurus, the estimate was [$4 million to $6 million], and it sold for $44.6 million." Hatton said she first heard about the Mars rock (formally called NWA 16788) about a year ago from the rock's seller, who learned about the specimen from a meteorite hunter in Africa. ("NWA" is short for "Northwest Africa," the region where the rock was found.) "When they first acquired it, they called me right away," she said. "I said, 'All right, we have got to get it tested; we need to have it published in the meteoritical bulletin." As such, the seller went through several formal steps to document and test the rock as well as have it published upon. That testing process was rather rigorous for a few reasons. First of all, unlike lunar meteorite candidates, possible Mars meteorites have no pristine samples to be compared with. During the Apollo years, astronauts physically brought hundreds of pounds of moon rocks back to Earth, and those samples still serve as the isotopic reference point for determining whether a rock is indeed a lunar meteorite or just a peculiar piece of our planet. Astronauts haven't visited the Red Planet yet, so of course we don't have any Mars rock reference points — and though there is still talk of a possible Mars Sample Return program to bring home samples that NASA's Perseverance rover has been collecting from the Martian surface over the last few years, the timeline on that is as unclear as can be. It may even be cancelled, if the Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal is passed as-is by Congress. Alas, the testing team had to come up with a workaround, and they did so by considering a few clues we have about what a Martian meteorite should look like. How do you verify a Mars rock? Imagine something huge impacting another world — in this case, an asteroid striking Mars long ago. As a consequence of that impact, there'd have been a bunch of stuff that shot upward during the crash — chunks of the Martian surface, particles of dust, and who knows what else. If any of that debris managed to shoot far enough to exit the Martian atmosphere, it'd have been possible for those travelers to reach Earth, travel through our atmosphere and land somewhere on our world. Because of this journey, Martian atmospheric data is important to consider when verifying whether something is a Mars rock — and thanks to the twin Viking landers that NASA sent to Mars in the '70s, scientists indeed have that atmospheric data. "You'll find little gas pockets in a lot of Martian meteorites," Hatton said. "We've cut those pockets open and compared the gas in those pockets to the gas that we analyzed from the Martian atmosphere — and if they match up, then we know that rock came from Mars." The next step has to do with the general composition of a meteorite. Typically, Hatton explains, meteorites contain what's known as "Maskelynite" glass, which forms as the result of the big crash that forced the meteorite off the surface of a world. "That's layer one," she explained. "Is there Maskelynite glass in this rock? If it is, it's a meteorite, because we only find that in meteorites." "Then it's very easy," she said. "What's the [chemical makeup] of this rock? Compare it to a [Mars] rock that we have that we found in the desert — if they match, then boom. That's Martian." The market price of Mars Usually, pricing rare items that come into Sotheby's isn't too much of an ordeal. For instance, if you're trying to figure out the value of an antique necklace, you can look at the value of the stones and metals in the piece, think about the fame of the designer and look into how much other items from the same era cost. Similar thought processes help auction houses estimate the value of objects like photographs, autographs, technology and art. "If I have a Picasso, I just compare it to the other Picassos," Hatton said. "Is it bigger, blue or older? Is it depicting Marie-Thérèse [Walter, a French model and muse of the artist]?" The same can't be said for rare scientific items. "I really have to think about the context, the background, the history, the rarity, the significance, and then I put an estimate on it," Hatton said. In the case of the Mars rock soon to be up for auction, she said the cost estimate of $2 million to $4 million came from the fact that it's the biggest Red Planet meteorite we have. For context, other, smaller Martian meteorites have sold for between $20,000 and $80,000, Hatton said, but she emphasized that bigger isn't exactly always better in the auction world. Sometimes, the bigger you get, the more likely it is for the bidding price to go down. "How many people could fit a 100-foot long sauropod in their house? Nobody, not even every museum could fit a sauropod that's 100 feet long," she said, as an example. "So, then your market gets much smaller. That's also something to consider: Who could maintain this? Who could have it in their home?" But that reasoning doesn't really apply in this case, because NWA 16788 — though huge for a Mars meteorite — can still fit into an average-sized backpack. So, Hatton calls the maximum $4 million figure on the Mars rock at hand a conservative estimate. But beyond all the statistics, there's also an unusual aesthetic value to consider with NWA 16788. "It also looks just like the surface of the Red Planet," she said. "Most other Martian meteorites that we find are really small, thin slices, and when you first look at them, you would never guess that they're Martian." "This one has really amazing fusion crust on the outside," she added. "If you look closely at it, you could almost use it as a film set for a movie about Mars — put little teeny people on there, because you could see the grooves and the ripples and the mountains on it." But, well, does this belong in a museum? When asked why she believes a specimen so brilliant it can be called the "largest Mars rock on Earth" should be auctioned off to a collector rather than donated to a public museum or scientific institution — it's no secret that many would argue for the latter — Hatton looked back at the history of museums as a whole. "If we didn't have personal private collectors, we would not have museums," she said. "Many of my clients give the things to museums or loan them to museums." She also explained that having to pay for something may make one more likely to care for their property: "If it's precious to you monetarily, you take care of it. Having this value tied to the object helps ensure that it is taken care of." "There are some museums that don't have the funding and the staff to properly care for objects," she added. "So, a lot of times, the private collectors are saving these objects. They're making sure that they're taken care of." Hatton also pointed out that many major collectors loan their items to museums, and as part of that loan, offer extra money to have staff take care of the items or fund postdoctoral researchers to study them. Related Stories: — Ouch! Carlo Rambaldi's original screen-used 'E.T.' model might reach $1 million at Sotheby's auction — The secret of why Mars grew cold and dry may be locked away in its rocks — Space auction: Sally Ride memorabilia collection sells for $145,000 "Part of what I am hoping, and I think I am achieving with a lot of these sales, is raising the profile of all of these different types of space, sci-tech and natural history objects, and helping people understand how important they are." And though Hatton doesn't allow herself to place her own personal value estimate on the Mars rock — or anything she's auctioning off, for that matter — she highlighted that auctions aren't always purely about the items themselves. "I've had people cry after they've bought things at an auction. I've cried when I've had people contact me and say, 'will you sell this?' because there [are] your white whales — your grails that you hope maybe one day you'll get to see. I always root for people to get what they want, because it's not just about the object. They're kind of chasing a dream." Solve the daily Crossword
ABC News
6 hours ago
- Science
- ABC News
An $8 million Mars rock and the science behind it
Sotheby's sold a meteorite from Mars for US$5.3 million last Wednesday to an undisclosed buyer. Sotheby's claims is the largest Martian meteorite in the world, at nearly 25kgs. But for planetary scientist like Professor Gretchen Benedix, the value of Martian meteorites is beyond the imaginations of most private collectors. She shares the science that has been used to analyse meteorites, and the potential discoveries that might be made from access to such a large Martian rock. Guest: Professor Gretchen Benedix, cosmic mineralogist and astrogeologist at Curtin's Space Science and Technology Centre, and Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at Curtin University.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- 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
2 days ago
- Science
- 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
2 days ago
- Science
- 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
