A Massive Mars Meteorite That Crashed Into Earth Just Fetched $5.3M At Auction
To understand what makes NWA 16788 special, consider this: There are currently 77,000 officially known meteorites, and only 400 (0.52%) are Martian meteorites. Among these 400, only 5.4% have the unique formation that NWA 16788 has. Its fine-grained volcanic texture shows that it was formed slowly from cooled lava beneath the Martian surface. These types are called "microgabbroic Martian meteorites" and are very rare.
Then, there's the weight. All the 400 Martian rocks on Earth weigh 374kg in total. NWA 16788 alone weighs 24.67kg, over 6% of the total weight of all Mars rocks. To put this into perspective, NWA 16788 is about 70% larger than the next largest Mars meteorite, which weighs just 14.51kg. So it's not surprising that when a meteorite hunter found it on November 16, 2023, in the remote Agadez region in Niger, right on dry land in the Sahara Desert, it was quite literally like striking gold.
NWA 16788 has a reddish-brown hue, just like Mars. Internally, it contains a glass called maskelynite, showing that it was likely hit by a very strong asteroid, pushing it off Mars's surface and 140 million miles away to Earth. The meteorite still has most of its original physical and chemical makeup, so it seems it got to Earth quite recently.
The auction for this rare piece began at 03:00 PM BST on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. It lasted less than 5 hours, during which it went above the estimated maximum of $4 million and sold for $5.3 million. The fact that it exceeded the original estimate shows that we humans are still deeply captivated by space and are willing to pay a fortune to own a piece. There have been mixed reactions from scientists about this auction, with some questioning the decision to sell it, rather than keep it in a museum for further study and appreciation.
