For sale: A 54-pound (25-kilogram) rock. $2 million to $4 million.

RadishRose

SF VIP
Location
Connecticut, USA
Why so expensive? It's the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth.

the-biggest-piece-of-m.jpg

According to the auction house, the meteorite is believed to have been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike before traveling 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) to Earth, where it crashed into the Sahara. A meteorite hunter found it in Niger in November 2023, Sotheby's says.
The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York
 

How do they know it's from Mars? Does it have a "Made in Mars" label?
How could they really know for sure, but this statement was within the link provided in the OP: " . . . a small piece of the red planet remnant was removed and sent to a specialized lab that confirmed it is from Mars. It was compared with the distinct chemical composition of Martian meteorites discovered during the Viking space probe that landed on Mars in 1976 . . . "
 

How could they really know for sure, but this statement was within the link provided in the OP: " . . . a small piece of the red planet remnant was removed and sent to a specialized lab that confirmed it is from Mars. It was compared with the distinct chemical composition of Martian meteorites discovered during the Viking space probe that landed on Mars in 1976 . . . "
Oh. I didn't click on the link/article. Busted!
 
Yes, that is interesting, Rose. Thanks for posting.

I once read, in a book about the history of steel, that the earliest known artifacts made of steel (iron alloyed with carbon and other minerals) were fashioned millennia ago in Africa. The steel material was found as natural objects, meteorites.

Intentional human production of steel only occurred centuries later.
 
Let me get this straight.
This rock survived a planetary explosion, drifted alone through 140 million miles of cold, empty space, crash-landed in the Sahara, and baked in blistering heat while waiting in silence for eons … just to be auctioned off to some guy named Chad who wants it as a wine cellar conversation piece? Or worse, spend eternity next to a lava lamp in some guy's man cave?
Hey, maybe if it's lucky, it’ll be reincarnated and survive as Karen's minimalist coffee table.
Peak. Cosmic. Disrespect.
 

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