Are you ready to rock? How about a space rock? Sotheby’s “Geek Week” sale in New York will feature NWA 16788, a 54-pound hunk of Martian crust that blasted off Mars after an asteroid strike, drifted 140 million miles, and landed in Niger’s Sahara in 2023. The meteorite makes up about 7 percent of all known Martian material on Earth and is more than twice the size of any other red-planet specimen.
Tests matched its chemistry to readings from NASA’s 1976 Viking lander, confirming its origin. Sotheby’s expects bids between $2-million and $4-million. Sharing the spotlight is a six-foot-tall juvenile Ceratosaurus skeleton dug up in Wyoming, estimated at $4 million to $6 million. Both lots cap a 122-item natural-history auction filled with fossils, gems, and other space rocks, which the auction house says are proof that science can be as collectible as fine art.
Source: AP News
