Sotheby’s in New York is set to auction the largest known piece of Mars ever found on Earth—a 54-pound (24.67 kg) meteorite named NWA 16788.
Scientists say the meteorite likely blasted off Mars after a massive asteroid impact and travelled 140 million miles before landing in the Sahara Desert. It was discovered in Niger in November 2023 by a meteorite hunter.
A small sample was sent for lab testing, confirming its Martian origin by comparing its chemical makeup with meteorites collected by NASA’s Viking landers in 1976.
The rock is classified as an olivine-microgabbroic shergottite, formed from slow-cooling Martian magma and featuring minerals like pyroxene and olivine. Its glassy surface shows it endured intense heat entering Earth’s atmosphere.
The meteorite was previously exhibited at the Italian Space Agency in Rome, though its current owner remains undisclosed. Testing suggests it fell to Earth only in recent years.
Alongside the meteorite, Sotheby’s Geek Week auction on 16 July will feature a mounted juvenile Ceratosaurus dinosaur skeleton, estimated at $4 to $6 million. The skeleton, from the Late Jurassic period about 150 million years ago, was discovered in Wyoming in 1996 and reassembled by fossil experts.
The Ceratosaurus, a bipedal predator smaller than the Tyrannosaurus rex, could grow up to 25 feet long. This specimen stands more than 6 feet tall and nearly 11 feet long.
The auction includes 122 lots, ranging from meteorites and fossils to gem-quality minerals, showcasing some of the rarest natural history treasures on the market today.
Microsoft has introduced new tools to stop AI agents from accessing data without permission, alongside a Nvidia-powered Surface laptop that can run...
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Russia's health watchdog said on Tuesday that no cases of plague had been detected among anyone who had come into contact with a Siberian plague institute laboratory worker who died last week, and locals said their lives had barely been disrupted.
Russia struck Ukraine overnight in one of the biggest attacks of the conflict, killing at least 19 people, Kyiv's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. Around 70 missiles were fired at Ukraine during the attack, as well as drones, the Ministry said.
The Saudi-led coalition says it has carried out a series of military operations against Houthi targets in Yemen after attacks on two Saudi airports left three people dead and dozens injured.
A large Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow and the surrounding region has killed two people, damaged homes and sparked a major fire at a key fuel facility, according to Russian officials and military bloggers.
Azerbaijan and the five Central Asian states have signed two key documents at the 8th Consultative Meeting of Heads of State in Turkmenbashi, formalising a broader framework for regional cooperation in transport, trade, energy, digitalisation and security.
Microsoft has introduced new tools to stop AI agents from accessing data without permission, alongside a Nvidia-powered Surface laptop that can run advanced AI directly on the device.
Picture three scenarios: a hospital that can spot a disease before the patient feels sick, a power grid that feeds thousands of data centres and a government network that is attacked daily. All three depend on artificial intelligence, and one question matters most: who is really in charge?
OpenAI and Anthropic told Australian parliament on Tuesday they would welcome laws requiring them to report data breaches carried out by their AI agents, acknowledging the decision to notify authorities was currently at their discretion.
Most people meet artificial intelligence (AI) through a phone. It suggests the next word, sorts the photos, flags the odd charge on a bank card. But the technology has been quietly moving into places where mistakes cost more: the systems that run banks, hospitals, businesses and government offices.
A four-person crew aboard SpaceX's Crew-13 mission, consisting of two U.S. astronauts, a Canadian astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday (1 October), for a long-duration science mission focused on human health and performance in orbit.
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