The rear of the stone from the Tissint Martian meteorite is almost completely covered with a glossy black fusion crust.
Tom Lapen and his colleagues' data showed that the true age of the Martian meteorite ALH84001 is about 400 million years younger than earlier age estimates.
NWA 7034, found in Northwest Africa, has 10 times the water content of other previously found Martian meteorites.
NWA 7034 could help scientists piece together a previously unstudied time in Martian geologic history.
This piece of hardened lava came from Mars. After being knocked off the Martian surface by an asteroid or comet, it drifted in space for millions of years, until it reached Earth and fell to the ground as a meteorite.
The 1.1 kg stone of the Tissint Martian meteorite at the Natural History Museum, London. The rear of the stone is almost completely covered with a glossy black fusion crust.
A sample of a Mars rock from the Tissint meteorite fall, which dropped chunks of the Red Planet into the Morocco desert in July 2011.
A study published in November 2012 that analyzed Martian meteorites found that Earth and the Red Planet share similar formation histories.
False color image of a polished section obtained from EDS analyses. Fe is red; Mg is green; Ca is yellow; Al is white. Notice the olivine macrocrysts zoning and the variable composition of core olivine. Pyroxene is blue-green in the groundmass, maskelynite is white. Image released Oct. 11, 2012.
