The largest known Martian meteorite has just been sold at auction for $5.29 million, selling well over the asking price of $2 million to $4 million. The hefty chunk of the Red Planet could help us learn more about our cosmic neighbor — if it’s allowed to be properly studied.
The meteorite, dubbed Northwest Africa (NWA) 16788, is around twice the size of a basketball and weighs 54 pounds (24.5 kilograms), making it “the largest known piece of Mars ever found on Earth,” according to Sotheby’s — the auction house responsible for selling the space rock.
It is around 70% larger than the previous largest known Martian meteorite, and is described as having a “deep red hue” and a “glassy crust,” according to Sotheby’s.
An anonymous meteorite hunter recovered NWA 16788 from part of the Sahara desert in Niger in November 2023. The space rock was known to scientists before now but has not been studied in detail, meaning it is currently unclear how old the space rock is, according to a 2024 study.
“NWA 16788 is a geological time capsule from another world,” Sotheby’s representatives wrote. “With fewer than 400 Martian meteorites ever recorded, and most no larger than a pebble, this specimen offers the biggest tangible connection to a planet that has captivated humanity for centuries.”
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The meteorite was sold at a natural history-themed auction held at Sotheby’s New York auction house on Wednesday (July 16), along with more than 100 other lots, which included dinosaur fossils, megalodon teeth, Neanderthal tools, rare minerals, a piece of “fossilized lightning” and several other meteorites.
Sold at the same auction was the mounted skeleton of a juvenile ceratosaurus, a theropod dinosaur that lived during the late Jurassic period. The skeleton sold for $30.5 million, making it the third most-expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction. The most expensive fossil ever sold was a stegosaurus skeleton named “Apex,” which sold for $44.6 million in July 2024.
What can we learn from Martian meteorites?
Martian meteorites are chunks of the Red Planet that were ejected into space as asteroids and comets smashed into the alien world. Most of these fragments have likely drifted in space for millions, if not billions, of years before eventually falling to Earth.
While several Mars rovers have examined rocks on the Red Planet, these robots haven’t returned any to Earth so far, and this is unlikely to change due to NASA’s recent cancellation of the Mars Sample Return mission, meaning meteorites like NWA 16788 are currently the only way of directly studying Mars’ origins on Earth. (A planned Chinese mission could bring Mars samples back to Earth no sooner than 2031.)
Martian meteorites on Earth have already led to multiple discoveries: For example, in 2023, researchers discovered a “huge diversity” of organic compounds hiding in a rock that was recovered from Morocco; and in 2024, experts uncovered evidence of ancient water on Mars in a rediscovered meteorite found in a university collection.
Researchers have also traced back the likely origins of more than 200 Martian meteorites and found that they can be linked to just five different impact sites on Mars, hinting that the space rocks can be used to study specific Mars locations.
Whether or not researchers can learn more about the Red Planet from NWA 16788 depends on whether its new owner allows it to be studied by scientists.
