![]() ![]() Venus – with its relatively recent volcanic activity – was another possible place of origin for the meteorite. It is too young to have come from an asteroid, where volcanic activity is thought to have ceased shortly after the formation of our solar system. Nakhla’s age turned out to be key to pinpointing its origin. Comparing those moon rocks with the Nakhla meteorite confirmed that Nakhla is not from the moon. What’s more, NASA’s missions to the moon returned samples from the lunar surface. So the moon was ruled out as a possible place of origin for the Nakhla meteorite. It’s thought that no volcanic activity has occurred on the moon for about 3 billion years. Its body of origin must been volcanic, with the volcanic activity taking place 1.3 billion years ago. However, scientists realized that Nakhla was formed by the cooling of magma it’s what’s called an igneous rock. So the Nakhla meteorite was shown not to be an earthly rock, but Earth’s nearby moon was another possible place of origin for the meteorite. Widmanstatten pattern, via Wikimedia Commons. One of the most revealing tests is to cut a slab of a suspected meteorite and bathe it in acid: if a special pattern called the Widmanstatten pattern appears, the rock is then definitely a meteorite because such iron-nickel crystals never form on Earth. Meteorites also have a density higher than average for earthly rocks. Iron meteorites always contain at least 4% nickel. To rule out Earth, they tested the composition and the density of the meteorite. Geologists performed other tests on the meteorite to reveal its origin. This eliminates the possibility the Nakhla was formed at the same time as the solar system. ![]() Nakhla was found to be 1.3 billion years old – much younger than our solar system at about 4.5 billion years old. To attribute the Nakhla meteorite’s origin to Mars, scientists first had to analyze it. Every one of them has its own fascinating story to tell. ![]() A meteor’s name changes to meteorite when it manages to hit the ground, in spite of Earth’s protective blanket of air.Īs surprising as it might be, there are only 188 known meteorite craters on Earth as of 2016. Earth’s atmosphere does a good job of protecting us from this incoming debris. Very few falling meteors ever become meteorites that is, the dust and rocks from space rarely reach the ground. They are mostly dust-sized particles, but some are large or small rocky or metallic chunks. They make bright streaks in the sky we know as meteors, or shooting stars. Some 37,000-78,000 tons of space debris enters the atmosphere yearly, by some estimates. They are rocks from space, many of which enter our atmosphere every year. Meteorites are places where geology and astronomy meet. Seven decades later, scientists found out that the Nakhla meteorite was no ordinary space rock. A legend claims that one of those rocks struck a dog, which vaporized instantly! It was the first meteorite in Egyptian records. About 40 pieces of rock rained from the sky, with a total weight later determined to be about 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of stone. They later reported a white trail of smoke that approached them from northeast. local time, the villagers heard explosions coming from far away. Life was unfolding as usual in the small village of El Nakhla El Bahariya, Egypt, when, at 9 a.m. Nakhla meteorite specimen at the American Museum of Natural History, NYC. ![]()
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