Desert Meteorite, 'Black Beauty," May Represent Large Swathes of Mars

A meteorite that was discovered in the Moroccan desert may just represent large swathes of the Martian crust. Scientists have found that NWA 7034, the Martian meteorite, is actually a 4.4 billion-year-old chunk of the crust that may be representative of the "bulk background" of rocks on the Martian surface.

The meteorite itself has been nicknamed "Black Beauty." Weighing about 11 ounces, the meteorite was first analyzed in 2011. It has a chemical makeup that confirms it was once part of Mars, but it's also like no other Martian meteorite ever discovered. It's a breccia, which is a mashup of different rock types welded together in a basaltic matrix. It contains sedimentary components that match the chemical makeup of rocks analyzed by the Mars rovers.

In order to better understand this meteorite, the scientists used a variety of spectroscopic techniques to analyze it.

"Other techniques give us measurements of a dime-sized spot," said Kevin Cannon, one of the researchers, in a news release. "What we wanted to do was get an average for the entire sample. That overall measurement was what ended up matching the orbital data. 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."

In fact, the new research suggests that the dark plains on Mars are dominated by brecciated rocks similar to Black Beauty. This makes a lot of sense with what is known about Mars. The planet is actually punctured by over 400,000 impact craters, and brecciation is a natural consequence of impacts.

The findings reveal a bit more about surface of Mars and show that this rock may actually be representative of a large portion of the Martian surface.

The findings are published in the journal Icarus.

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