Red-Coat
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On 16th July, Sotheby’s New York will be auctioning the largest Martian meteorite found to date. It was discovered in the remote Agadez Region (Kefkaf) of Niger in Africa by an un-named meteorite hunter in 2023 and subsequently approved for entry into the MetSoc database in 2025 as “NWA 16788”, an olivine-microgabbroic shergottite, formed from the slow cooling of Martian magma.
The meteorite is jointly owned by the Chinese meteorite hunter Zhang Bo and two other collectors.
It’s not known when it fell but it shows minimal weathering, so probably relatively recently (in geological terms.) It measures around 15 x 11 x 6 inches and weighs a little over 54 lbs (24.67 kilograms) which represents about 6.5% of all the Martian material so far discovered on Earth. There are only around 19 known craters on the Martian surface which represent impacts large enough to have resulted in a meteorite of this size.
Sotheby’s estimate for the hammer price is 2 million to 4 million US Dollars, and a minimum opening bid of 1.6 million has been set.
Pictures from Sotheby’s website:
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2025/natural-history-2/martian-meteorite-nwa-16788
Picture by Weibiao Hsu:
The meteorite is jointly owned by the Chinese meteorite hunter Zhang Bo and two other collectors.
It’s not known when it fell but it shows minimal weathering, so probably relatively recently (in geological terms.) It measures around 15 x 11 x 6 inches and weighs a little over 54 lbs (24.67 kilograms) which represents about 6.5% of all the Martian material so far discovered on Earth. There are only around 19 known craters on the Martian surface which represent impacts large enough to have resulted in a meteorite of this size.
Sotheby’s estimate for the hammer price is 2 million to 4 million US Dollars, and a minimum opening bid of 1.6 million has been set.
Pictures from Sotheby’s website:
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2025/natural-history-2/martian-meteorite-nwa-16788
Picture by Weibiao Hsu:
