An 'extremely rare' piece of Martian rock has sold for $4.3 million at an auction in New York.
According to auction house and art company Sotheby's, the meteorite, dubbed 'NWA', weighs 24.5 kilograms and is 15 inches thick.
The auction house said the Martian rock was discovered in November 2023 in a remote area of Niger and was 70 percent larger in volume than the rock itself.
Meteorites often enter Earth when comets pass close to Earth's orbit.
Sotheby's said the price of the Martian rock reached $5.3 million after taxes and fees were applied.
The auction house says the meteorite is a reddish-brown color and is "extremely rare."
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| Only 400 such meteorites have been discovered in the world. |
"Remember, 70 percent of the Earth is water. So we're very lucky that this meteorite fell on dry land and not in the ocean," said Cassandra Hatton, vice president of science and natural history at Sotheby's.
It is the largest Martian rock ever discovered on Earth.
It is not yet clear who bought the rock for $5.3 million.
More than 100 items were up for sale at Wednesday's auction.
Among them was a dinosaur skeleton that sold for $26 million, while a dinosaur skull sold for $1.4 million.
It should be noted that in 2024, scientists discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars, which exists deep beneath the rocky outer layer of the red planet.
This was revealed by a new analysis of data from the US space agency NASA's Mars InSight lander.
This lander landed on Mars in 2018.
The lander also had a seismometer that recorded earthquakes, or tremors, on Mars over a period of four years.
Analysis of these tremors and the movement of the planet revealed that there is water beneath its crust.
It should be noted that InSight's science mission ended in December 2022, during which the lander silently kept its finger on the 'pulse of Mars' for four years.
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