Meteorite found in the Sahara Desert turns out to be piece of Mars
A rose-colored meteorite found in the Sahara Desert in 2022 has been identified as a 4.1-billion-year-old chunk of the Red Planet, a NASA study determined.
The nearly two-pound meteorite was found in Mali. It was named Teghaza 001, after the salt plain where it was discovered, NASA said in a news release.
Study of the meteorite allowed NASA scientists to determine it was one of roughly 435 from Mars. Meteorites can be verified as having been part of Mars by comparing their chemical and mineral makeup to samples and data collected by NASA's Martian missions.
Age-dating of the meteorite led researchers to conclude it was about 4.1 billion years old, making it one of the three most ancient Martian meteorites found on Earth, NASA said. That provides "a rare snapshot" of the planet's crust and formation, the agency said.
"It was only after we started looking closely that we realized this meteorite is really unique," said Yang Liu, the lead author of a paper detailing the age-dating process and related discoveries. Liu is part of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "One of the paper's reviewers called it a Rosetta Stone for Mars."
Previous ancient Martian meteorites provided narrower glimpses into the planet's history. But Teghaza 001 shows how Mars' crust formed from cooling magma and was then changed by water on the planet's surface.
The meteorite is made of a unique mix of volcanic minerals, including zircon crystals, NASA said, matching samples observed by the agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in the planet's southern highlands. Francis Tissot, a geochemistry professor at Caltech, helped the researchers use a pioneering age-dating method that studied a piece of meteorite smaller than a fingernail. The precise method allowed scientists to analyze single grains of minerals.
That analysis showed the rock had been altered by Martian water about 4.1 billion years ago. The rock itself may have been formed even earlier, NASA said. The data also showed that early Mars may have had a more dynamic water cycle than scientists previously believed.
Paper author Lee Saper said that the meteorite "records interactions of water and rock and maybe even an imprint of the Martian atmosphere as it was losing water." Another study of the meteorite, published in June, focused on the rock's water content and considered how water might have shaped the early topography of Mars.
"This is really our first piece of Martian crust from a part of Mars we've never had a sample of before," Lee, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, added.
Liu said that further research on the meteorite is likely.
"We've only scratched the surface," Liu said.
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