On Mars, certain elements such as neodymium and lanthanum don’t like to bond with minerals in the mantle, the solid-but-squidgy part of the planet below the crust. The shergottites are all volcanic rocks with similar compositions, but a handful of them, the depleted shergottites, possess a strange chemical signature. Most Martian meteorites are in a category called the shergottites, named after the Indian town of Sherghati where one was seen falling from the heavens in 1865. “This could really change the game about how we understand Mars,” says Luke Daly, a meteorite expert at the University of Glasgow who was not involved with the study. If these meteorites do come from Tharsis, as the analysis published in Nature Communications suggests, then scientists have their hands on meteorites that can help identify the infernal forces that fueled the construction of this world-tipping edifice. It is so heavy that, as it formed, it effectively tipped the planet over by 20 degrees. It was built over billions of years by countless magma injections and lava flows. This ancient volcanic behemoth on Mars is adorned with thousands of individual volcanoes and extends three times the area of the continental United States. Now, with the assistance of a crater-counting machine learning program, a team of researchers studying the depleted shergottites may have finally cracked the case: They concluded that these geologic projectiles came from a single crater atop Tharsis, the largest volcanic feature in the solar system. Now known to scientists as the depleted shergottites, this collection of more than a dozen space rocks makes up an intriguing portion of the 317 known Martian meteorites-the only material from Mars we have on Earth.ĭetermining what part of Mars these meteorites came from is a critical part of piecing together the planet’s history-but it’s proven to be a major scientific challenge. Some of the rocks eventually found their way to Earth and survived the plunge through our planet’s atmosphere to thud into the surface–including a hefty 15-pound shard that crashed into Morocco in 2011. The impact released a fountain of debris, and some of the rocky fragments pierced the sky, escaping the planet’s gravity to journey through the dark. It advised anyone who believes they have found a fragment to contact the Smithsonian, which instructs people to email photos of the specimens.About a million years ago, an asteroid smacked into the normally tranquil surface of Mars. Instead, they are curated by the Smithsonian Institution and other academic and scientific institutions around the country. “Meteorites cool rapidly and generally are not a risk to the public,” NASA said, noting it does not collect them. While South Texas law enforcement officials say they don’t yet know where the meteorite landed, they warned anyone who finds it not to touch it.īut NASA said there is no need for concern. “Small asteroids enter the atmosphere above the continental United States once or twice a year on average and often deliver meteorites to the ground,” NASA said in a statement.Īccording to the space agency and astronomers, meteorites hit the Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds-7 to 45 miles per second-but matter in the atmosphere creates friction that slows them and causes them to disintegrate, with the smaller pieces burning up, releasing streaks of light. The odds of a meteorite striking a home or person in the United States are very small but not null. The impact just off a highway northeast of McAllen, a city of 143,000 on the Mexico border, shook the ground and nearby homes and startled residents, many of whom called 911 and reported they had heard an explosion.ĭespite the shockwaves, there have been no reports of property damage or injuries. Wednesday, NASA said its experts believe the object was a meteoroid about 2 feet in diameter and around 1,000 pounds. (CN) - NASA is urging anyone who finds strange rocks near McAllen, Texas, to contact the Smithsonian Institution after confirming a boom residents heard Wednesday was a 1,000-pound meteorite crashing to the Earth.Īfter examining images of an “atmospheric fireball“ captured by weather satellites around 5:30 p.m.
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