The largest Martian meteorite, weighing almost 25 kilos, is up for auction.

The largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth, weighing 24.67 kilograms , will be auctioned on July 16 by Sotheby's in New York with a truly astronomical estimated value : the starting bid is 1.8 million dollars , while the sale estimate is between 2 and 4 million dollars . In 2024 , the find was exhibited at the headquarters of the Italian Space Agency on the occasion of the European Researchers' Night and was being studied at the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Florence . The Martian fragment NWA 16788 was discovered on November 16, 2023, by an unknown meteorite hunter in the Agadez region of the Sahara Desert , approximately 90 kilometers west of the Chirfa oasis in northwestern Niger . The find, sold to an international dealer, was then stored in a private gallery located in Arezzo . According to Sotheby's auction house's website, the meteorite would have broken off from the surface of Mars after the impact of a massive asteroid and then traveled 225 million kilometers to Earth. Fragments of Mars are extremely rare: of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites , only 400 are Martian meteorites , with a total weight of approximately 374 kilograms . Weighing 24.67 kilograms, NWA 16788 (measuring 38 cm x 28 cm x 15 cm ) represents approximately 6.5% of all currently known Martian material and is approximately 70% larger than the second-largest Martian meteorite found on Earth so far. "NWA 16788 is covered by a reddish-brown fusion crust that gives it an unmistakable Martian hue," Sotheby's writes. " Regmaglites , which are surface depressions formed by frictional heating during rapid descent through Earth's atmosphere , are also visible on the meteorite's surface. NWA 16788 shows minimal alteration, indicating that its physical and chemical composition has not undergone significant changes since its arrival in the Sahara Desert. In other words, NWA 16788 is likely relatively new to Earth, having fallen from space quite recently."