Someone Paid $5.3 Million For A Piece Of Mars

Add this to nan database of "things that mightiness beryllium nosy if you had a buttload of money": Someone forked complete $5.3 cardinal successful a Sotheby's auction to ain a portion of Mars. The Red Planet meteorite was discovered successful 2023 successful a distant area of nan Sahara Desert successful Niger.

Martian meteorites of immoderate size are incredibly rare. To get here, an asteroid first hits nan Red Planet to eject worldly from its surface. (Sotheby's says location are only 19 Martian craters ample capable to person spit retired this one.) That chunk past has to recreation 140 cardinal miles done abstraction to scope Earth. Only 400 of nan 77,000+ officially recognized meteorites hail from Mars.

The meteorite is known arsenic NWA 16788. Its reddish-brown, scarred exterior almost looks for illustration nan Red Planet's aboveground successful miniature.

This is besides an exceptionally large Martian meteorite. It's astir 70 percent larger than nan second-biggest portion of Mars recovered connected Earth. It measures 14.75 x 11 x 6 inches and weighs complete 54 lbs. It's large capable to correspond astir 6.5 percent of each known Martian worldly connected our planet.

The winning bid was for $4.3 million. After fees, that comes retired to complete $5.3 million, making it nan astir valuable meteorite ever sold.

Before bidding, nan auction location sent a mini portion of nan abstraction stone to a lab, which confirmed its distinctly Martian chemic composition. Over 21 percent of nan stone is composed of maskelynite, a solid produced erstwhile nan asteroid struck nan Martian surface.