Largest piece of Mars on Earth has fetched a record-breaking over $5 million at auction in New York.
According to The Guardian, rare geological and archaeological objects auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York included the rock named NWA 16788, which was sold for more than $5 million, while a juvenile dinosaur skeleton was sold for over $30 million.
The 54-pound (25 kg) Mars rock was found in the largest hot desert in the world, the Sahara, in Nigeria in November 2023.
The estimated sale price of the rack was $2m to $4m before auction, while the final bid for the rare rock was $4.3 million. After adding other costs and fees, the official bidding price of NWA 16788 was around $5.3 million.
Cassandra Hatton, vice-chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby’s ahead of the auction, said, “This Martian meteorite is the largest piece of Mars we have ever found by a long shot. So it’s more than double the size of what we previously thought was the largest piece of Mars.”
The identity of the buyer of the Mars piece, which is about 70% larger than the second largest rock from the red planet, is not revealed yet.
Furthermore, as per the auction house, it was a rare rock, as only 400 out of 77,000 meteorites discovered on Earth are from Mars.
