You would go home a house one meteorite; Or rather, you would give over $ 5 million to auction To obtain a piece of Mars?
And yet, a meteorite of 24.5kg, sold today (17.07.2025) Auction by Sotheby’s for $ 5.3 million, an amount of all time for such an object.
The meteor named NWA 16788 is the largest found to date on Earth and comes from the red planet. The 15 -minute auction participated with repeated bids many contenders, from telephone and online.
‘This is a stunning meteorite that rolled off the surface of Mars“, Said Kassandra Haton, the Vice President of Sotheby’s and head of the Department of Science and Natural History.
NWA 16788 was found in November 2023 by a “meteor hunter” in the Sahara desert, in the remote area of Agantez, Niger. “People there already knew it was something special. Only when he was sent to his fragment laboratory did we realize that he was coming from Mars. And then, when we sent the results and we compared them, we said: A, it’s not just Mars, it’s the biggest part of Mars on our planet, “Hatton told.
About 5 million years ago an asteroid or comet collided with Mars with so much power that rocks and other debris was fired into space. “So, it came to a moment … It crossed 140 million miles into space, passed the earth’s atmosphere,” Hatton said, recalling that most objects were burning when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
“It is amazing that she passed her and then that she fell in the middle of the desert, instead of the middle of the ocean, at a point where we could not find him and that someone who could recognize him could find him,” he commented.
Like its native planet, the NWA 16788 has a characteristic reddish color but also has some signs of melting from its fierce fall through the atmosphere.
About 400 officially recognized meteorites have been found on Earth, and NWA 16788 is by far the largest.