2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo Visitors to Be Able to Touch Sample of Martian Meteorite; Meteorite Also to Be on Display at Expo

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:14 JST, September 18, 2024

Visitors to the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo will be able to touch a sample of a Martian meteorite that will be on display for the entirety of the Expo from April to October, the government announced Tuesday.

The sample, which has been processed into flakes, will be exhibited along with the Martian meteorite that is one of the world’s largest originating from the planet.

Discovered in Antarctica in November 2000, the meteorite is currently stored at the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) in Tachikawa, Tokyo. NIPR showed the object to the press on Tuesday.

The meteorite is 29 centimeters wide and 16 centimeters high, and part of it is slightly greenish in color. Only a few people, including researchers, have been able to see it due to the strict control of temperature and humidity of its storage room, which is kept at around 22 C and 50% humidity.

NIPR officials call it a “Goshintai,” an object of worship believed to contain the spirit of a deity, since it has important scientific value that could elucidate the origin of life.

“I would be happy if the Expo provides an opportunity for many people to think about the origin of the universe and life,” said Naoya Imae, an assistant professor at NIPR who collected the meteorite.

The U.S. exhibited a moon rock at its pavilion at the 1970 Osaka Expo and the government is lobbying the U.S. government to display it again at the Expo.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Ken Saito emphasized its significance, saying, “The Mars rock symbolically shows the direction of mankind’s challenge to reach Mars following the moon.”