Texas-based Heritage Auctions will have an auction titled 'Nature & Science Signature Auction, featuring The Hoppel Collection of Fine Minerals' in Dallas. Its website has a list and photos of the featured items and while most of them are minerals, three items stood out-space rocks.
The first meteorite came from Mars, named NWA 7397, which was recently discovered in the dessert of Northwest Africa in 2012. It was the 65th meteorite that landed in the region with a weight of 2.13 kg. It was brought to a museum but the auction was given a portion of it weighing 0.62 kg. The scientists believed that the rock was chipped from the red planet when it was hit by an asteroid. Its opening bid is at $80,000.
Rocks from Mars are considered rare as most meteorites often come from the moon, thus it is normal that they have higher value than the rest of the space rocks. The last Martian rock auctioned by Heritage was the 1.8-kg Dar al Gani 1058 specimen worth $330,000.
Another space rock to be auctioned is a chondrite meteorite, a portion of an asteroid, which was discovered in the Sahara Desert of Morocco. It is larger than the Martian rock and weighs 8.9 kg with an opening bid $7,500.
The third space rock is a 7.6-kg muonionalusta iron meteorite which has been carved. It can reach $11,500 inclusive of the buyer's premium.
The space rocks can be really expensive and can reach over $100,000 because of it is rarely offered to the public and of it as being part of natural history. The Meteoritical Society, an organization that tracks meteorite information, currently has listed 45,661 valid meteorite names in their database.
The auction will be held on June 2. Interested buyers may check the website of Heritage Auctions for more details.
