'Black Beauty' Meteorite is Martian, Say Experts

NASA still has two functioning rovers rolling around the Red Planet's surface, poking at Martian rocks and dust. However, experts may not have to wait until astronauts set foot on Mars to see these rocks for themselves. A new spectroscopic analysis of the "Black Beauty" meteorite, on Earth, has revealed that it is very likely a chunk of Mars' crust dating back to an impact 4.4 billion years ago.

Meteorite NWA 7034, nicknamed "Black Beauty" for its stunning appearance, was discovered in the Moroccan desert a few years ago. And while Earth isn't exactly unfamiliar to ancient space debris, the remarkable black surface of this rock left experts wondering about its origins.

Well now it looks like black is the new red, meaning a lot more of this rock could be lying just under the Red Planet's dusty surface.

That's at least according to a study recently published in the journal Icarus, which details how spectroscopic measurements of the meteorite are mirror images to measurements of the Martian crust taken by orbiting satellites.

And it should be noted that these satellites were looking to "dark plains," or swaths of land on the Martian surface that appear darker from space, where the black and gray rocks of the crust peek through the brighter reds of Mars' dust.

This isn't the first Mars-borne meteorite to be found on Earth, but what sets it apart is that it does not have volcanic origins.

Being mainly igneous rocks, other Martian meteorites were "similar to spacecraft measurements [of the Martian crust] but annoyingly different," researcher Jack Mustard, from Brown University, explained in a statement.

This implied that these rocks were born of a violent and volcanic period on Mars, or were changed during their impact with Earth. Black Beauty, however, is a breccia - a mashup of different rock types welded together. Its nature, and the fact that analyses exactly match what Martian orbiters see, implies that for the first time, experts have their hand on a rock that could represent the nature of most Martian rocks.

"This is showing that if you went to Mars and picked up a chunk of crust, you'd expect it to be heavily beat up, battered, broken apart and put back together," added co-author Kevin Cannon, who described how Mars is littered with over 400,000 notable impact craters.

"Because brecciation is a natural consequence of impacts," he added, "it is expected that material similar to NWA 7034 has accumulated on Mars over time."

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