Its not often I get to post about something geeky and really cool that I own but today is a special occasion because I now own a piece of Mars after winning a French Martian meteorite auction!

For years, I have wanted to own pieces of other celestial bodies besides Earth and today my collection grows!  I already have a small piece of lunar meteorite (I don’t think I’ve posted about it before so perhaps that will be my next post) and today I can now say that I own a piece of Mars!

A couple of weeks ago, the urge to look for a piece of Mars hit me so I started looking around and I heard about the Martian meteorite Amgala 001.  It was discovered in 2022 in the Sahara and pieces of it have started showing up for sale online.  In my search for a reasonably priced piece of it, I came across a French auction site called Catawiki that had some pieces of it up for auction.  And as luck would have it, I managed to be the high bidder and could finally fulfill my dream of owning a piece of Mars.

Before I talk about my awesome purchase, I think I should mention how great Catawiki is for those looking for more high end, collectors items.  I had never heard of them before but I can already tell I will be spending a lot of money on that site.  They offer all sorts of things from fossils and bits of archeology to rocks from space and fine art.  If you like to collect things like that like I do (I also collect fossils so this is going to be a very dangerous site for me to visit, lol), I suggest checking them out.

Now as for the details of this amazing Martian meteorite slice…  It is a Shergottite Martian Achondrite (I’m not even going to pretend I understand what that really means so feel free to do some Googling along with me) and it weights 2.71g.  This piece of Martian rock was blown off of Mars when it was hit with a meteorite and after floating through space for who knows how long ago (I’m assuming millions of years but I really don’t know), it finally landed in the Western Sahara.  It you are interested in more detail, you can find out more on the Meteoritical Society website.

Anyway, I just felt like bragging about my amazing new purchase of a Martian meteorite that will now be part of my space themed bedroom (maybe I should post some pics of that too?)

Do you own any meteorites?  Let me know in the comments below!