A rock that formed around 4.5 billion years ago on Mars before being blasted into space by a meteor strike and making its way to Earth contains telltale evidence that it was formed in the presence of hot water
By James Woodford
22 November 2024
A Martian meteorite nicknamed Black Beauty
Carl B. Agee (University of New Mexico)
Crystals inside a Martian meteorite hint that there may have been plentiful hot water on Mars when the rock formed 4.45 billion years ago.
The rock, nicknamed Black Beauty, was blasted into space by an impact on the surface of Mars before ultimately crashing into the Sahara desert.
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Much has already been learned about Mars from studying the meteorite, which was discovered in Morocco in 2011 and is formally known as Northwest Africa 7034.
Aaron Cavosie at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and his colleagues have spent years studying a tiny fragment of it that includes a zircon crystal measuring 50 micrometres across.
Cavosie describes Black Beauty as a “garbage can” rock because it was formed from hundreds of fragments smashed together. “It’s a wonderful buffet of Martian history, a mixture of very old and very young rocks,” he says. “But many of the fragments in it are among the oldest pieces of rock from Mars.”