A chunk of the Martian surface that made an unlikely voyage to Earth will be available to the highest bidder at Sotheby's auction in New York.

Mariner 4, built by JPL in Pasadena, took the images on July 14, 1965. One of the mission's leaders reflects on decades of studying the Red Planet.

A 54-pound meteorite from Mars is expected to fetch up to $4 million when it goes up for auction later this month at Sotheby's.

The red, brown and gray hunk is about 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth and represents nearly 7% of all the Martian material currently on this planet, Sotheby’s says. It measures nearly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches.

Sixty years ago today, NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft took the first up-close images of Mars, changing humanity's understanding of the Red Planet. The spacecraft was designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

After its voyage past Mars, Mariner 4 maintained intermittent communication with JPL and returned data about the interplanetary environment for two more years. But by the end of 1967, the spacecraft had suffered close to 100 micrometeoroid impacts and was out of fuel. The mission was officially ended on Dec. 21.

Bruno Mars is the king of romantic R&B songs. But is he romantically involved with someone in real life, and has he tied the knot already?

Mars, the Red Planet, may have been much wetter in the distant past than scientists ever imagined. A groundbreaking discovery has revealed more than 15,000 kilometers of ancient riverbeds in Mars’ Noachis Terra region,