They came from Mars, not in peace, but in pieces.
Scientists are confirming that 15 pounds (6.8kg) of rock collected recently in Morocco fell to Earth from Mars during a meteorite shower in July last year.
This is only the fifth time in history that scientists have chemically confirmed Martian meteorites that people witnessed falling. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks were not discovered on the ground in north Africa until the end of last month.
This is an important and unique opportunity for scientists trying to learn about Mars’ potential for life. So far, no US or Russian spacecraft has returned bits of Mars, so the only samples scientists can examine are those that arrive on Earth in meteorite showers.
Scientists and collectors are ecstatic, and already the rocks are fetching big bucks because they are among the rarest things on Earth, rarer even than gold. The biggest rock weighs more than 1kg.
“It’s Christmas in January,” said former NASA sciences chief Alan Stern, director of the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida.
“It’s nice to have Mars sending samples to Earth, particularly when our pockets are too empty to go get them ourselves,” he said.
A special committee of meteorite experts, including some NASA scientists, on Tuesday confirmed test results that showed the rocks came from Mars, based on their age and chemical signature.
Astronomers think millions of years ago something big smashed into Mars and sent rocks hurtling through the solar system. After a long journey through space, one of those rocks plunged through Earth’s atmosphere, breaking into smaller pieces.
Most other Martian meteorite samples sat around on Earth for millions of years — or at the very least decades — before they were discovered, which makes them tainted with Earth materials and life. These new rocks, while still probably contaminated because they have been on Earth for months, are purer.
The last time a Martian meteorite fell and was found fresh was in 1962. All the known Martian rocks on Earth add up to less than 109kg.
The new samples were scooped up by dealers from those who found them. Even before the official certification, scientists at NASA, museums and universities scrambled to buy or trade these meteorites.
“It’s incredibly fresh. It’s highly valuable for that reason,” said Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics and curator at the University of New Mexico. “This is a beauty. It’s gorgeous.”
Meteorite dealer Darryl Pitt said he is charging US$11,000 to US$22,500 an ounce and has sold most of his supply already. At that price, the Martian rock costs about 10 times as much as gold.
One important decision the scientists made on Tuesday was to officially connect the rocks to the fiery plunge witnessed by people and captured on video in the middle of last year.
The announcement and the naming of these meteorites, called Tissint, came from the International Society for Meteoritics and Planetary Science, which is the official group of 950 scientists that confirms and names meteorites.
Tony Irving of the University of Washington did the scientific analysis on the rocks and he said there is no doubt they are from the red planet.
Scientists can tell when meteorites are from Mars because they know what the Martian atmosphere is made of, thanks to numerous probes sent there. The chemical signature of the rocks and the Martian air match, Irving said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing