Largest chunk of Mars on Earth blasted through space by meteorite sells for $5.3 million

The largest piece of rock from Mars ever found on Earth, weighing 54 pounds, was sold for an extraordinary price at an auction of rare geological and archaeological objects on Wednesday in New York.

The rock named NWA 16788 was discovered in November 2023 by a meteorite hunter in the Sahara Desert in Niger. It had been blasted off the planet's surface by a large asteroid strike, and traveled 140 million miles to Earth, according to art auctioneer firm Sotheby's.

Though the estimated sale price of the Mars rock was between $2 and $4 million, it was sold for $5.3 million, making it the most valuable meteorite ever sold at an auction. The identity of the buyer was not disclosed.

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The heavy, angular stone is about 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth, and by itself represents about 7% of all Martian material currently on Earth, Sotheby's said. It measures about 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches, according to The Associated Press.

Sotheby's said the rock is also especially rare, as there are only 400 meteorites from Mars out of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites on Earth.

The live bidding Wednesday was slow, with the auctioneer trying to coax more offers and decreasing the minimum bid increases.

The bidding for the Mars meteorite began with two advance offers of $1.9 million and $2 million. The live bidding slowly proceeded with increases of $200,000 and $300,000 until $4 million, then continued with $100,000 increases until reaching $4.3 million.

“This Martian meteorite is the largest piece of Mars we have ever found by a long shot,” Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby’s, said in an interview before the auction. “So it’s more than double the size of what we previously thought was the largest piece of Mars.”

It’s not clear exactly when the meteorite was blasted off the surface of Mars, but testing showed it probably happened in recent years, Sotheby’s says.

Hatton said a specialized lab examined a small piece of the red planet remnant and confirmed it was from Mars. It was compared with the distinct chemical composition of Martian meteorites discovered during the Viking space probe that landed on Mars in 1976, she said.

The examination found that it is an “olivine-microgabbroic shergottite,” a type of Martian rock formed from the slow cooling of Martian magma. It has a course-grained texture and contains the minerals pyroxene and olivine, Sotheby’s says.

It also has a glassy surface, likely due to the high heat that burned it when it fell through Earth’s atmosphere, Hatton said. “So that was their first clue that this wasn’t just some big rock on the ground,” she said.