This little stone has a real story, said Professor Caroline Smith, a member of the scientific team
It was formed about 450 million years ago, wasdropped from Mars by an asteroid or comet about 600,000-700,000 years ago, and then landed on Earth. Scientists do not know the exact origins of the "arrival" of a piece of Mars on Earth, but they assume that it was about 1000 years ago. And now he is returning to Mars.
Credit: NASA / JPL
Discovered in the deserts of Oman in 1999,The meteorite, known as Sayh al Uhaymir 008 or SaU 008, is a classic piece of basalt very similar to a type of igneous rock found, for example, on the Giant's Trail in Northern Ireland.
Trail of the Giants, examples of basalt
It contains a lot of pyroxene, olivine and feldspar minerals. And it's this well-studied chemistry, along with the textures of the meteorite, that makes it so useful for the Perseverance robot mission.
Credit: NASA/JPL
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