Meteor Stone bought from Morocco is from Mars; has evidence of water in Martian crust

Last updated on: January 8, 2013 at 8:08 am by Desh Kapoor

Meteor Stone bought from Morocco is from Mars; has evidence of water in Martian crust 2013-01-08T08:08:20-06:00 Desh Kapoor

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Jay Piatek – a meteorite enthusiast – was in Morocco and he found a stone that was supposed to have been from a meteorite. He bought the – weighing less than a pound – stone and sent it to the researchers in University of New Mexico to analyze it. Their analysis came up with some really interesting insights and finds. Unlike other samples collected by Martian rovers, this stone seemed to be from Martian crust as opposed to the mantle! And, it showed evidence of Water as well!

The meteor seemed to have originated on Mars, but the rock’s composition didn’t exactly match any of the well-studied meteorites from there found previously. When the researchers compared it to data from soil and rock samples obtained by Curiosity and other recent Martian rovers, though, they realized that rather than originating in the planet’s mantle, as the others had, it appeared to have come from the Martian crust.

Most intriguingly, when they analyzed the basaltic breccia rock even more closely, they discovered it contained a large quantity of water molecules locked in its crystalline structure. While previous studies of Martian meteorites have suggested the presence of water on the red planet, this sample’s analysis, published today in Science, revealed that it contained 10 times more water than any Martian meteorite examined before.

The discovery of the water molecules in the rock at concentrations of 6000 parts per million could indicate the presence of liquid water sometime during Mars’ history. “The high water content could mean there was an interaction of the rocks with surface water either from volcanic magma, or from fluids from impacting comets during that time,” study co-author Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institute said in a statement.

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