Latest news with #MeteoriticalSociety
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
At 54 pounds, this Mars rock is largest on Earth. It could sell at auction for $4 million
A chunk of the Martian surface that made an unlikely interplanetary voyage to Earth will soon be available to the highest bidder. And for a few million dollars, it could be yours. Sotheby's, a British-founded broker based in New York City, will soon auction off a cosmic item it's billing as the largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth. Of course, such a distinction is expected to also fetch a high price tag. Here's everything to know about the large, valuable Mars rock. The large space rock, which has the scientific name of NWA 16788, had its Martian origins validated by the Meteoritical Society, which included it in its Meteoritical Bulletin, the global journal of record for meteor-related science. Sotheby's, one of the oldest and largest fine auctioneers of art and collectibles in the world, will auction off the meteorite, along with more than 100 other items, Wednesday, July 16, at its New York City headquarters. Marketed by Sotheby's as "the largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth," the cosmic object could sell for up to $4 million, making it the most valuable meteorite ever offered at auction. "NWA 16788 is a discovery of extraordinary significance," Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman of science and natural history for Sotheby's, said in a statement. "Weathered by its journey through space and time, its immense size and unmistakable red color sets it apart as a once-in-a-generation find." Rocks in space are known as meteoroids. If those space rocks enter Earth's atmosphere, they become meteors that streak across the sky in events colloquially referred to as "shooting stars." Meteors – or fragments of them – that survive their atmospheric trip and land on the surface without burning up become meteorites, according to NASA. The Martian meteorite is 54 pounds, or about the weight of a standard bag of cement. Measuring nearly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches, the space rock is approximately 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth. In fact, it is so large that it represents approximately 6.5% of all Martian material ever found on Earth. NWA 16788 was discovered Nov. 16, 2023, by a meteorite hunter in Niger's remote Agadez region in the Sahara Desert. Featuring an unmistakable reddish Martian hue, NWA 16788's internal composition suggests it was blasted from the surface of Mars by a powerful asteroid strike. Intense enough to turn some of the meteorite's minerals into glass, the asteroid strike sent the rock hurtling through space, where it miraculously made it through Earth's atmosphere without burning up, Sotheby's said in an auction house video. Because the meteorite shows signs of minimal Earthly weathering, and its chemical makeup has not significantly changed, experts believe it reached our planet in recent years. On a planet mostly covered in water, discovering meteorites on land is incredibly rare. And Mars meteorites are even more elusive on Earth. Of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites, only 400 are Martian meteorites, according to Sotheby's. The meteorite was previously on exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome and at a private gallery in Arezzo, Italy, in Tuscany, before it landed in Sotheby's auction. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Giant Mars rock at auction: $4 million, red meteorite could be yours
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Researchers may have solved mystery of Mercury's missing meteorites, but doubts remain
Researchers suspect that two meteorites found in the Sahara Desert in 2023 may originally have come from Mercury, which would make them the first identified fragments of the solar system's innermost planet. The least studied and most mysterious of the solar system's rocky planets, Mercury is so close to the sun that exploring it is difficult even for probes. Only two uncrewed spacecraft have visited it to date — Mariner 10, launched in 1973, and MESSENGER, launched in 2004. A third, BepiColombo, is en route and due to enter orbit around the planet in late 2026. Scientists know little about Mercury's geology and composition, and they have never been able to study a fragment of the planet that landed on Earth as a meteorite. In contrast, there are more than 1,100 known samples from the moon and Mars in the database of the Meteoritical Society, an organization that catalogs all known meteorites. These 1,100 meteorites originated as fragments flung from the surfaces of the moon and Mars during asteroid impacts before making their way to Earth after a journey through space. Not every planet is likely to eject fragments of itself Earth-ward during collisions. Though Venus is closer to us than Mars is, its greater gravitational pull and thick atmosphere may prevent the launch of impact debris. But some astronomers believe that Mercury should be capable of generating meteors. 'Based on the amount of lunar and Martian meteorites, we should have around 10 Mercury meteorites, according to dynamical modeling,' said Ben Rider-Stokes, a postdoctoral researcher in achondrite meteorites at the UK's Open University and lead author of a study on the Sahara meteorites, published in June in the journal Icarus. 'However, Mercury is a lot closer to the sun, so anything that's ejected off Mercury also has to escape the sun's gravity to get to us. It is dynamically possible, just a lot harder. No one has confidently identified a meteorite from Mercury as of yet,' he said, adding that no mission thus far has been capable of bringing back physical samples from the planet either. If the two meteorites found in 2023 — named Northwest Africa 15915 (NWA 15915) and Ksar Ghilane 022 (KG 022) — were confirmed to be from Mercury, they would greatly advance scientists' understanding of the planet, according to Rider-Stokes. But he and his coauthors are the first to warn of some inconsistencies in matching those space rocks to what scientists know about Mercury. The biggest is that the fragments appear to have formed about 500 million years earlier than the surface of Mercury itself. However, according to Rider-Stokes, this finding could be based on inaccurate estimates, making a conclusive assessment unlikely. 'Until we return material from Mercury or visit the surface,' he said, 'it will be very difficult to confidently prove, and disprove, a Mercurian origin for these samples.' But there are some compositional clues that suggest the meteorites might have a link to the planet closest to the sun. It's not the first time that known meteorites have been associated with Mercury. The previous best candidate, based on the level of interest it piqued in astronomers, was a fragment called Northwest Africa (NWA) 7325, which was reportedly found in southern Morocco in early 2012. Rider-Stokes said that was the first meteorite to be potentially associated with Mercury: 'It got a lot of attention. A lot of people got very excited about it.' Further analysis, however, showed a richness in chrome at odds with Mercury's predicted surface composition. More recently, astronomers have suggested that a class of meteorites called aubrites — from a small meteorite that landed in 1836 in Aubres, France — might come from Mercury's mantle, the layer below the surface. However, these meteorites lack a chemical compatibility with what astronomers know about the planet's surface, Rider-Stokes said. 'That's what's so exciting about the samples that we studied — they have sort of the perfect chemistry to be representative of Mercury,' he said. Most of what is known about Mercury's surface and composition comes from NASA's MESSENGER probe, which assessed the makeup of the planet's crust from orbit. Both meteorites from the study, which Rider-Stokes analyzed with several instruments including an electron microscope, contain olivine and pyroxene, two iron-poor minerals confirmed by MESSENGER to be present on Mercury. The new analysis also revealed a complete lack of iron in the space rock samples, which is consistent with scientists' assumptions about the planet's surface. However, the meteorites contained only trace amounts of plagioclase, a mineral believed to dominate Mercury's surface. The biggest point of uncertainty, though, is still the meteorites' age. 'They are about 4.5 billion years old,' Rider-Stokes said, 'and most of Mercury's surface is only about 4 billion years old, so there's a 500 million-year difference.' However, he said he thinks this discrepancy is not sufficient to rule out a Mercurian origin, due to the limited reliability of MESSENGER's data, which has been also used to estimate the age of Mercury's surface layer. 'These estimates are based on impact cratering models and not absolute age dating, and therefore may not be entirely accurate,' Rider-Stokes said. 'It doesn't mean that these samples aren't good analogs for regional areas on the surface of Mercury, or the early Mercurian crust that is not visible on the modern surface of Mercury.' With more modern instruments now available, BepiColombo, the European Space Agency probe that will start studying Mercury in early 2027, may be able to answer long-standing questions about the planet, such as where it formed and whether it has any water. Having material confirmed to have come from other planetary bodies helps astronomers understand the nature of early solar system's building blocks, Rider-Stokes said, and identifying fragments of Mercury would be especially crucial since a mission to gather samples from the planet closest to the sun and bring them back would be extremely challenging and expensive. Sean Solomon, principal investigator for NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury, said in an email that he believes the two meteorites described in the recent paper likely did not originate from Mercury. Solomon, an adjunct senior research scientist at Columbia University in New York City, was not involved with the study. The primary reason Solomon cited for his doubts is that the meteorites formed much earlier than the best estimates for the ages of rocks now on Mercury's surface. But he said he thinks the samples still hold research value. 'Nonetheless, the two meteorites share many geochemical characteristics with Mercury surface materials, including little to no iron … and the presence of sulfur-rich minerals,' he added. 'These chemical traits have been interpreted to indicate that Mercury formed from precursor materials much more chemically reduced than those that formed Earth and the other inner planets. It may be that remnants of Mercury precursor materials still remain among meteorite parent bodies somewhere in the inner solar system, so the possibility that these two meteorites sample such materials warrants additional study.' Solomon also noted that it was difficult to persuade the planetary science community that there were samples from Mars in meteorite collections, and that it took precise matching of their chemistry with data about the surface of Mars taken by the Viking probes to convince researchers to take a closer look. Lunar meteorites were also not broadly acknowledged to be in meteorite collections until after the existence of Martian meteorites had been demonstrated in the 1980s, he added, even though the Apollo and Luna missions had returned abundant samples of lunar materials more than a decade earlier. Once samples are confirmed to be from a planetary body, Solomon said, they can provide crucial information not available from remote sensing by an orbiting spacecraft on the timing of key geological processes, the history of internal melting of the body, and clues to planet formation and early solar system processes. Rider-Stokes plans to continue the discussion around these meteorites at the annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society, which takes place in Perth this week. 'I'm going to discuss my findings with other academics across the world,' he said. 'At the moment, we can't definitively prove that these aren't from Mercury, so until that can be done, I think these samples will remain a major topic of debate across the planetary science community.'
USA Today
2 days ago
- Science
- USA Today
At 54 pounds, this Mars rock is largest on Earth. It could sell at auction for $4 million
Sotheby's in New York City will auction off a cosmic item billed as the largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth on July 16, 2025. A chunk of the Martian surface that made an unlikely interplanetary voyage to Earth will soon be available to the highest bidder. And for a few million dollars, it could be yours. Sotheby's, a British-founded broker based in New York City, will soon auction off a cosmic item it's billing as the largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth. Of course, such a distinction is expected to also fetch a high price tag. Here's everything to know about the large, valuable Mars rock. Mars rock could sell for $4 million at Sotheby's auction in New York The large space rock, which has the scientific name of NWA 16788, had its Martian origins validated by the Meteoritical Society, which included it in its Meteoritical Bulletin, the global journal of record for meteor-related science. Sotheby's, one of the oldest and largest fine auctioneers of art and collectibles in the world, will auction off the meteorite, along with more than 100 other items, Wednesday, July 16, at its New York City headquarters. Marketed by Sotheby's as "the largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth," the cosmic object could sell for up to $4 million, making it the most valuable meteorite ever offered at auction. "NWA 16788 is a discovery of extraordinary significance," Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman of science and natural history for Sotheby's, said in a statement. "Weathered by its journey through space and time, its immense size and unmistakable red color sets it apart as a once-in-a-generation find." What are meteorites? Rocks in space are known as meteoroids. If those space rocks enter Earth's atmosphere, they become meteors that streak across the sky in events colloquially referred to as "shooting stars." Meteors – or fragments of them – that survive their atmospheric trip and land on the surface without burning up become meteorites, according to NASA. Martian meteorite, or Mars rock, is largest on Earth: How big is it? The Martian meteorite is 54 pounds, or about the weight of a standard bag of cement. Measuring nearly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches, the space rock is approximately 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth. In fact, it is so large that it represents approximately 6.5% of all Martian material ever found on Earth. How did Martian space rock get to Earth? NWA 16788 was discovered Nov. 16, 2023, by a meteorite hunter in Niger's remote Agadez region in the Sahara Desert. Featuring an unmistakable reddish Martian hue, NWA 16788's internal composition suggests it was blasted from the surface of Mars by a powerful asteroid strike. Intense enough to turn some of the meteorite's minerals into glass, the asteroid strike sent the rock hurtling through space, where it miraculously made it through Earth's atmosphere without burning up, Sotheby's said in an auction house video. Because the meteorite shows signs of minimal Earthly weathering, and its chemical makeup has not significantly changed, experts believe it reached our planet in recent years. On a planet mostly covered in water, discovering meteorites on land is incredibly rare. And Mars meteorites are even more elusive on Earth. Of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites, only 400 are Martian meteorites, according to Sotheby's. The meteorite was previously on exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome and at a private gallery in Arezzo, Tuscany before it landed in Sotheby's auction. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@
WIRED
08-02-2025
- Science
- WIRED
How Morocco Became the Meteorite Hunting Capital of the World
Feb 8, 2025 5:00 AM Since the 'Saharan Gold Rush' in the 1990s, one researcher has been fighting for the North African country's contributions to science to be recognized. Photograph:If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED At the world's most renowned meteorite show, in Ensisheim in France, I noticed there were many dealers from Morocco. Unlike most of the Europeans and Americans—who had display cases and labels and books—the Moroccan stalls were minimalistic. Perhaps a white sheet covered with lumps of reddish-brown rocks. A pair of scales. Sometimes a piece of paper with prices per kilo written in biro. It was only back in England that I learned about the Saharan Gold Rush. Since 1999 the number of meteorites being found in Morocco has exploded. The number officially recognized exceeds a thousand—though this is described by scientists as 'a gross underestimate.' For comparison, the UK has a mere 23 falls and finds. 'You must talk to Hasnaa,' a dealer, Darryl Pitt, wrote to me. 'She has attempted—and has somewhat succeeded—turning the chaos of the North African meteorite trade into something more orderly.' It wasn't the first time her name had come up. Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane, a professor at the Hassan II University of Casablanca, is used to being the outsider in the room. At meetings of the Meteoritical Society's Committee for Meteorite Nomenclature, the group tasked with officially naming recognized meteorites, she was, when she was a member, 'the unique representative from any Arab or Muslim country.' (She remains a consultant to the committee.) When I broached the subject of Morocco's exports, she groaned. 'The situation with Moroccan meteorites is insane,' she says. 'It's unethical.' Towards the end of the last century several factors combined to make Morocco a meteorite hot spot. First, climate and geography. Allowing for the difference in total surface area, a meteorite is as likely to land in the Highlands of Scotland as in the Sahara, but in the former it will be a lot harder to find—the heather, the rocks—and will 'terrestrialize' much more quickly—the rain, the mud, the snow. Most (though not all) meteorites reach Earth with dark fusion crust exteriors. In the Sahara such rocks stand out against the sand. Buy this book at: If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Secondly, Morocco already had a network of Western fossil, mineral, and archaeological hunters and dealers, while many Moroccans—members of nomadic groups in particular—were highly skilled in searching for rocks and artifacts in the desert. When I walked with my herd, I looked at the ground,' a nomad explained to a journalist from the Middle East Eye. The stone business, he said, had rescued many nomadic families from poverty. Thirdly, Morocco's legal and geopolitical situation helped things along. 'We are, thank God, a peaceful country,' Chennaoui says. 'It is something unique in the region.' Here it is (relatively) safe to wander the Saharan sands looking for stones. Furthermore, there was no dedicated regulation of the country's meteorites. If you found a meteorite in Morocco, it was probably yours to do with as you liked. The American dealer Michael Gilmer places the beginning of the Saharan Gold Rush in the mid-1990s. Foreign dealers quickly discovered that unclassified meteorites could be purchased from Moroccan traders at very low prices, formally analyzed in the West, and sold on for considerable profit. The town of Erfoud in the southeastern Drâa-Tafilalet region of Morocco, known as 'the gateway to the Sahara,' became a hub for those hoping to make money from meteorites. A visitor will find shops selling meteorites and fossils, some with small ad hoc museums. Some nomads have diversified into taking tourists and collectors out into the desert to search for stones. Chennaoui is not against the meteorite trade. She has no wish to take away someone's livelihood, and besides, if no one was paid for their meteorites then no one would collect them and they would be lost to the desert. She does, however, 'think it's really unfair that nothing stays in Morocco.' Her dream is that one day the nation will build a permanent national collection of its own. Not everyone is keen. Some hunters and dealers fear a tightening of regulations on meteorite ownership and export and potential damage to their trade. 'They can put up museums if they want, but not take away our only source of income,' one man told the Financial Times. For now, Chennaoui is conducting a private rescue mission, using her own money to prevent interesting meteorites being sold abroad. She has turned her collection into a travelling exhibition, currently based in a shopping mall in Casablanca. With more than 17,000 visitors by June 2023, it presents for the first time in Morocco a collection of Moroccan meteorites. 'I want to educate people to be proud,' she says, 'to understand that this is their heritage.' Since 2004 Chennaoui's university group has been responsible for the fieldwork and documentation for almost all Moroccan falls. They also try to do the same for finds, 'but it's difficult because there are a lot of them.' She has initiated a system for people who think they might have found a meteorite to contact her or other local meteoriticists for verification. She tries to explain that 'even if a meteorite is sold and exported, it should still be recognized as something that was originally from their country.' Morocco continues to export huge numbers of meteorites, but according to Gilmer, the Saharan Gold Rush is now over. Local finders, realizing how much the middlemen and dealers were making, began demanding fairer compensation. Moroccan traders in the city increased their prices in response. At the same time, dealers noticed that the meteorites they were paying more for were of poorer quality and more weathered. The big, obvious, high-quality meteorites had mostly been picked and sold. A unique, unrepeatable period has come to a close. 'The world only has one region like northwest Africa, where a fortuitous combination of geographical, legal, and climatological forces converged,' Gilmer writes. 'There are no new Moroccos waiting in the wings.' The Gold Rush may be over but it leaves Morocco forever changed. Arguably Moroccans are now taking charge of their meteorites—whether in the form of nomads demanding fairer compensation or the development of national scientific institutions. 'We have gained scientific credibility in Morocco with laboratories around the world that leave the doors open for us to carry out our analyses and to welcome our students,' Chennaoui says. Excerpt adapted from The Meteorites: Encounters With Outer Space and Deep Time, by Helen Gordon. Published by Profile Books on February 6, 2025.
