NASA’s Curiosity rover has reconnoitered a prospective meteorite on Mars, which would be the 3rd it has found since it landed. An image of the rock was taken by Mastcam of the Curiosity rover on January 12, 2017. As prominent by Bob King for Universe Today, who first picked up the story, there are three dots on the meteorite which shows it was destroyed by Curiosity’s ChemCam tool. "This shimmering object, called 'Ames Knob', was observed in recent images from Curiosity rover," said by Guy Webster (a representative for) NASA.
Curiosity rover uses its ChemCam laser to research rocks on Mars, detecting the subsequent evaporated substantial to see what they are made of. When it did this study for its last meteorite in November 2016, named as Egg Rock, it had an iron-nickel composition. And it seems properly similar to this one, so they may have the same structure. "[Ames Knob] look like the nickel-iron meteorite 'Egg Rock' that Curiosity inspected in November, so this target was examined with the ChemCam laser-firing spectrometer," noted Webster. "It produced similar outcomes."
This latest meteorite is properly smooth proposes it is also fairly a new meteorite, though given that Mars has a thinner atmosphere than Earth. It may have simply practiced less erosion. The 1st meteorite seen by Curiosity rover, called Lebanon and marked in May 2014, also had a alike look.
 |
| This is Lebanon, the first meteorite seen by Curiosity, in May 2014. NASA/JPL-Caltec |
 |
| And this is Curiosity's second meteorite, Egg Rock, seen in October 2016. NASA/JPL-Caltech |
There is a bit of a mystery about these meteorites. However on Earth, 95% of all meteorites are stony and only 4.4% contains iron. But so far on Mars, all 8 meteorites seen have iron composition.
“Why no big stony meteorites have yet to be been discovered on Mars is confusing,” writes King. “Maybe they just compose in too well with all the other rocks scattering the Martian landscape. Or maybe they corrode more quickly on Mars than the metal variation.”
At any level, this newest find is no less interesting. NASA has not unconfined any outcomes from the ChemCam research yet, but maybe they will be in the future.
No comments