Where’s the Kaboom?
Sotheby’s $5.3M Martian Meteorite Steals the Spotlight in 2025.
Image courtesy of Sotheby’s.
One of this year’s most galactic auctions took place at Sotheby’s in July. A 54-pound Martian meteorite, affectionately nicknamed NWA 16788, attracted a record $5.3 million and was sold to a bidder who has since remained anonymous. NWA 16788 was discovered in Niger’s Sahara Desert in 2023 by a meteorite hunter. KAT initially featured the enormous space rock auction on our website in July 2025 (read more about its origins here). Laboratory analysis determined that it was a genuine fragment of the Martian crust. Scientists believe it was blasted off Mars about five million years ago by a powerful asteroid strike before wandering the solar system and eventually landing in the sands of Agadez.
Meteorites do appear at auctions from time to time; however, Martian specimens remain exceptionally rare. Fewer than 500 confirmed pieces exist, and most weigh in at only a few ounces. The impressive size of NWA 16788 set it apart instantly, and instead of spending its days being studied by scientists, it became a once-in-a-lifetime collecting opportunity. The auction drew worldwide interest, with institutions, private collectors, and natural history enthusiasts all competing for what amounted to the largest accessible piece of another planet ever offered for sale.
When the hammer finally fell, the meteorite entered the record books as the most expensive Martian specimen ever sold and, arguably, one of the most astonishing auction results of 2025. Some scientists objected to the fact that such a significant piece of Mars had ended up in private hands, but Sotheby’s Cassandra Hatton reminded them that research access wasn’t truly lost. A portion of NWA 16788 has already been preserved and analyzed at China’s Purple Mountain Observatory. “A sample has been taken and analyzed, and published in the Meteoritical Bulletin, so they could go and get that,” she told Space.com.
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