NEED TO KNOW
- The largest rock from Mars ever found on Earth is going up for auction at Sotheby’s on July 16
- The meteorite, known as NWA 16788, weighs about 54 lbs. and is approximately 15 inches at its widest point
- There are only about 400 Martian rocks on Earth at this time
The largest piece of Mars rock on Earth is scheduled to go up for auction — and it may sell for as much as $4 million.
Martian Meteorite NWA 16788 is set to be auctioned by Sotheby’s on July 16, per a release on the famous auction house’s website.
The meteorite weighs about 54 lbs. and is approximately 15 inches across at its widest section, per the release. The house also stated that the “incredibly rare discovery” was ejected from the surface of Mars after a “massive asteroid strike” and eventually landed 140 million miles away in the Sahara Desert.
The rock was discovered on Nov. 16, 2023, by a meteorite hunter in a remote part of Niger in West Africa. It is about 70% larger than the next biggest piece of Mars rock on Earth, per Sotheby’s.
Sotheby’s also stated that there are only about 400 known Mars rocks on Earth, which makes up less than 1% of all known space rocks on our planet.
“NWA 16788 shows minimal terrestrial weathering, indicating that its physical and chemical makeup have not been significantly altered since its arrival in the Sahara Desert,” read the release. “In other words, NWA 16788 is likely a relative newcomer here on Earth, having fallen from outer space rather recently.”
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Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, told CNN that the fact that the Mars rock is being sold — as opposed to donated to science — isn’t necessarily a good thing.
“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,” Brusatte said to the outlet.
However, other experts said private collecting of such objects can actually benefit scientific research overall.
“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 and Independent Research Fellow at the University of Leicester, told CNN.
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“If samples weren’t being found, we would not have anywhere near as much to study, and so wouldn’t know as much as we do,” she added.
A meteorite specifically describes a piece of rock that has survived a “trip” through Earth’s atmosphere and has landed intact on the surface of the Earth, per NASA.
They differ from meteoroids, which are defined as rocks still in space, as well as meteors, which describe rocks that enter the atmosphere at a high speed and burn up on arrival — sometimes creating what are known as “shooting stars.”
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