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We’ve been invaded by Martians — well, as least by Martian rocks.

A meteorite shower last July sent some 15 pounds of rocks to the ground in Morocco, where they were found in December. Scientists, having examined their makeup, confirmed that they came from Mars.

"It's Christmas in January," said former NASA sciences chief Alan Stern, director of the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida, according to Sky News. "It's nice to have Mars sending samples to Earth, particularly when our pockets are too empty to go get them ourselves."

Neither NASA nor Russian space junkets have returned any samples from the Red Planet, meaning the only samples scientists have been able to examine have come from past meteor showers.

The rocks from this find are much more pure than those from previous discoveries, which were contaminated by their environments. Most Martian rocks found on Earth have been here at least for hundreds of years and have turned up in the desert or Antarctica.

The AP said that the last meteorite from Mars that reached the Earth and was found fresh came in 1962.

The new samples were purchased by dealers from those who found them. Scientists worldwide have been scrambling to purchase or trade for the rocks, which Fox News reported are among the “rarest things on Earth, rarer even than gold.”

One meteorite dealer said he charged between $11,000 and $22,500 an ounce.

“It's scientifically invaluable," University of Alberta meteorite expert Chris Herd told Fox News. "These are really beautiful specimens. It's a rare type, so fresh and aesthetically pleasing.”

Herd is heading up the committee that confirmed the find came from Mars, based on their age and chemical makeup.

Scientists have hypothesized that the impact of something large into Mars millions of years ago sent the rocks on a path through the solar system, and that one of the rocks entered the Earth’s atmosphere and split into smaller pieces. Sometimes, those pieces touch down.

The largest of the rocks found in Morocco weighed just over two pounds.

"It's incredibly fresh” and “it's highly valuable for that reason," Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics and curator at the University of New Mexico, told Fox News. "For someone who knows their Martian, this is a beauty. It's gorgeous."

—JOE GREENE, NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM