State-of-the-art imaging uncovers the exciting life history of an unusual Mars meteorite
With human and sample-return missions to Mars still on the drawing board, geologists wishing to study the red planet rely on robotic helpers to collect and analyse samples. Earlier this year we said goodbye to NASA’s Opportunity rover, but Insight landed in November 2018, and several space agencies have Mars rover missions on their books for the next few years. But while we’re working on ways to bring samples back from Mars, geologists can study Martian meteorites that have been delivered to us by the forces at play in the Solar System. Earth is bombarded by tonnes of extraterrestrial material every day. Most of it comes from Jupiter Family Comets and the asteroid belt, and much of it burns up in the atmosphere or lands in the oceans, but meteorites from the Moon and Mars do make it to Earth’s surface. In research published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, scientists used a battery of synchrotron techniques to investigate a very unusual Martian meteorite, whose eventful life story offers some insights to the geological history of Mars.
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Image: BSE image with locations for XANES/XRD and XRF map.