Space rock from planet Mars found in Niger sells for millions in New York
…Niger govt investigates illegality of sale
Due to its favorable climate for preservation, the Sahara has become a prime spot for the discovery of meteorites, with meteorite hunters traversing the harsh and enormous landscape, hoping to find one.
The Government of Niger has now launched an investigation into the discovery and illegal sale of a meteorite from the planet Mars, with the scientific name NWA 16788 (NWA standing for north-west Africa), found in Niger Republic.
This piece of the Red Planet, the largest ever found on Earth, weighing 24.7kg, was sold for $4.3m (£3.2m) at Sotheby’s, who claimed that the meteorite was exported from Niger and transported in line with international procedures.
Not much is known about how the extraterrestrial piece found in the West African State ended up at an auction house in the United States without the knowledge of the Nigerien government.
According to an academic article, the said piece was found on November 16 2023, in the Sahara Desert, in Niger’s Agadez region, 90km (56 miles) to the west of the Chirfa Oasis, by an anonymous meteorite hunter.
The meteorite is said to have been sold by the local community to an international dealer before it was transferred to a private gallery in the Italian city of Arezzo, according to an Italian publication.
In order to decide on its point of origin, a team of scientists led by Giovanni Pratesi, a Professor of Mineralogy, examined the piece before it was put on display last year at the Italian Space Agency in Rome. It then appeared in New York last month, missing two chopped pieces that remained in Italy for further research.
Prof. Paul Sereno, an academic at Chicago and founder of the organization NigerHeritage, stated that Nigerien law was infringed, citing international laws. “International law says you cannot simply take something that is important to the heritage of a country – be it a cultural item, a physical item, a natural item, an extraterrestrial item – out of the country. You know we’ve moved on from colonial times when all this was okay,” he said.
Sereno has spent years uncovering the country’s vast deposits of dinosaur bones in the Sahara, and he is a major voice for the return of Niger’s cultural and natural heritage, including extraterrestrial objects found in Niger, which are to be housed in a museum on an island that shares a waterway with Niger’s capital, Niamey.
Global agreements, including those of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have tried to regulate trade in these objects but ambiguity in the agreements tend to pose serious challenges to their enforcement.
Niger passed its own law in 1997 aimed at protecting its heritage, even though it said that it does not yet have a specific legislation on meteorites.
Morocco is said to have faced a similar issue with the huge number of meteorites (more than 1,000) found within its borders, including the Sahara. In her recent book ‘The Meteorites’, Helen Gordon wrote that Morocco was one of the world’s greatest exporters of space rocks.
It is hoped that the sale of NWA 16788 will mark a turning point in the black-market sale and purchase of space rocks from Niger by unknown individuals. Such an action not only costs the Nigerien government potential revenue loss, but also deprives the country of its natural resources. Hopefully the Nigerien government would see the need to enact specific legislations that would criminalize the act and put a stop to the illegal trade of its natural heritage.
Source: News agencies
