Meteorites that fell from Mars to Earth helped scientists better understand the structure of the Red Planet. Scientists from the University of California in San Diego analyzed the chemical composition of Martian meteorites about 1.3 billion years old that fell on the territory of Antarctica and Africa, reports ScienceDaily.
“Martian meteorites are the only physical materials from Mars that we have. They make it possible to make precise measurements and then quantify the processes occurring on Mars and near the Martian surface. These meteorites provide direct information about the composition of Mars, which can substantiate the credibility of scientific research, in particular, based on information from the Mars rover Perseverance,” says James Day., the geologist.
“Martian meteorites are the only physical materials from Mars that we have. They make it possible to make precise measurements and then quantify the processes occurring on Mars and near the Martian surface. These meteorites provide direct information about the composition of Mars, which can substantiate the credibility of scientific research, in particular, based on information from the Mars rover Rerseverance,” says James Day., the geologist.
The team analyzed two types of meteorites: flyby and chassignite. Nachlits are basaltic, similar to lava erupted in Iceland and Hawaii today, and are rich in the mineral clinopyroxene. Chassignites consist almost entirely of the mineral olivine. On Earth, basalts are a major component of the Earth’s crust, especially under the oceans, and its mantle is rich in olivine.
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In this way, the composition of Mars is similar to that of Earth, scientists say: the rocks are connected by fractional crystallization inside the volcano in which they were formed.
Some of the molten plumes included near-surface portions of the crust that also interacted with the Martian atmosphere.
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“By determining that nachlite and chassignite came from the same volcanic system and that they interacted with the Martian crust that has been modified by atmospheric interactions, we can identify a new type of rock on Mars.” With the existing collection of Martian meteorites that are of volcanic origin, we can better understand the internal structure of Mars,” Day said.
The scientist emphasized that the volcanism of Mars has incredible similarities with Earth’s but also differences: “On the one hand, nakhlites and chassignites were formed similarly to recent volcanism in places such as Oahu in Hawaii. There, new volcanoes press against the mantle, creating tectonic forces that cause further volcanism. On the other hand, reservoirs on Mars are extremely old and separated from each other shortly after the formation of the Red Planet. On Earth, plate tectonics helped to re-mix the reservoirs over time. In this sense, Mars provides an important link in understanding what the early Earth might have looked like and what it looks like today.”
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The results of the study, the scientists say, are important not only for understanding how Mars formed and evolved but also for use by NASA missions, including Insight, Perseverance, and Mars Sample Return.
Last year, scientists from the Technical University of Munich reported that they had found “a huge organic diversity” in the Tissint meteorite, which in 2011 fell near the village of the same name in Morocco.
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