Topline
A 54-pound meteorite from Mars, believed to be the largest piece of the planet currently on Earth, sold in a Sotheby’s auction for $5.3 million after a 15-minute bidding war to quickly become the most valuable meteorite ever sold at auction.
The Planet Mars.
Called NWA 16788, the specimen was found in November of 2023 in Niger’s remote Agadez region, part of the Sahara Desert.
The “once-in-a-generation find” has a red hue and a glassy fusion crust that Sotheby's said suggests it was blasted from the surface of Mars by an asteroid impact so powerful it turned some of the meteorite’s minerals into glass.
There are roughly 77,000 officially recognized meteorites on Earth and, of those, only 400 are Martian, according to Sotheby's.
The hunk of rock was expected to fetch between $2 million and $4 million when it sold.
NWA 16788, a Martian meteorite, is going up for auction July 16, 2025.
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6.59%. That’s the percentage of Martian material on Earth that this meteorite accounts for. The 400 recognized Martian meteorites have a combined total weight of roughly 825 pounds, meaning NWA 16788 makes up almost 7% of all Martian material ever found on our planet.
Only about 15 meteorites are discovered in North America per year, according to Sotheby’s.
Before the NWA 16788 went up for sale, the Fukang meteorite held the title for the most expensive ever offered at auction. The specimen was found in 2000 in China and is classified as a pallasite—a type of stony–iron meteorite with olivine crystals. It’s thought to be over 4.5 million years old, possibly older than Earth, and weighs more than 2,200 pounds. In 2008, a 925-pound slice of the Fukang meteorite was valued at around $2 million and put up for auction by Bonhams in New York. It didn’t sell.