The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York

NPR ^ | July 13, 2025

[itsahoot]

Shucks I got a couple of those I would sell for 20 bucks.

[from occupied ga]

Since 67%* of New Yorkers are economically illiterate NYC is a good place to auction something with no intrinsic value and dubious provenance.

*67% is the fraction that vote Democrat. You have to be economically illiterate to vote Democrat Thus my estimation of economic illiteracy in NYC.

[itsahoot]

There is absolutely no way to determine where it came from.

Sure there is, just compare them to known samples, they can get some of those on eBay cheap.

[GaltAdonis]

It would make a really good sturdy doorstop, ya know…
It’s a steal at $4M!

[alstewartfan]

Pick up or delivery?

[US_MilitaryRules]

How would it be from Mars? Did it just jump off the planet?

[US_MilitaryRules]

Oh I see. A meteor hit Mars! Uh Huh. Sure thing. Can some one point me to the impact location? One other thing. Since we on Earth had a major impact in AZ there must be some Earth rock on Mars! lol

[simpson96]

I can see an enterprising person or group paying $20 mil for it.

At 54 pounds, even breaking it up into 10,000 pieces, they’d be small but still “decent sized” pieces.

Sell each one - an actual piece of Mars - for $2,500.

That’s $25 mil.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

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• More about candy bars and vintage Fords: The Milky Way May Be Surrounded by 100 Hidden Galaxies [07/14/2025]

[SunkenCiv]

Dang, a two-fer!

[snip] The juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis skeleton was found in 1996 near Laramie, Wyoming, at Bone Cabin Quarry, a gold mine for dinosaur bones. Specialists assembled nearly 140 fossil bones with some sculpted materials to recreate the skeleton and mounted it so it's ready to exhibit, Sotheby's says.

The skeleton is believed to be from the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago, Sotheby's says. It's auction estimate is $4 million to $6 million.

Ceratosaurus dinosaurs were bipeds with short arms that appear similar to the Tyrannosaurus rex, but smaller. Ceratosaurus dinosaurs could grow up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) long, while the Tyrannosaurs rex could be 40 feet (12 meters) long.

The skeleton was acquired last year by Fossilogic, a Utah-based fossil preparation and mounting company. [/snip]

[from occupied ga]

There aren’t any “known samples” if you set the criterion as having been collected on Mars and returned to earth.

[itsahoot]

There aren’t any “known samples” if you set the criterion as having been collected on Mars and returned to earth.

Do we really always need these anymore? </s>

[from occupied ga]

We have proven that mars consists of rocks and dirt. Other than the answer to the question “Did life evolve on mars?” There really isn’t anything very interesting there. And I have a clue about that I’m sharing right now. Back to. Earths early history the banded iron formations were laid down. The accepted origin of these is oxygen produced by photosynthetic bacteria reacted with the iron dissolved in the primordial oceans to produce red iron oxide. Mars has a great deal of iron oxide - hint red rust. WHERE DID THE OXYGEN COME FROM that generated the red iron oxide on Mars? I guess that there is a reasonable likelihood it was produced the same way on Mars as on earth.

Other than the answer to this question there isn’t anything on Mars that’s worth the cost of going there. Especially not worth sending manned missions. I know this is blasphemy to the FR space kadets, but the South Pole is much more hospitable and one hell of a lot of cheaper to get to and I don’t see anyone lining up to colonize Antarctica (AND Antartica has air you can breathe) unlike Mars’ atmosphere which is 0.6% of Earth’s

So put those resources into rooting out illegal aliens and shipping them back to where they came from