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Meteor May Be From Martian Moon Phobos
An anonymous reader writes "Russian and NASA scientists published in the March journal of Solar System Research, the proposition that a 1980 Yemenite meteorite originated from the martian moon, Phobos. It would be the first moon rock from another planet. New Scientist has a short description and Astrobiology Magazine has the picture. Unique among the 20,000 meteorites collected, this is similar to heat-shocked charcoal and shows several mineral phases not found terrestrially."
I think the phrase it meant to be parsed as, the first rock from the moon of another planet, i.e., a moon rock. That is interesting in that if true, it would give us detailed compositional information about the material of either Phobos or Demos, hmm, that isn't spelled correctly...oh well, the other moon, you know, where the red guys landed in Doom and you had to go shoot them repeatedly with the automatic shotgun (you did use the cheats, didn't you?) From reading the article (gasp) it is a very very interesting rock, that shows three different rocks in it, the material of the parent body and then material from two different impacts, all amalgomated into one meteor that then visited our fair planet.
For those who didn't read the article, it most likely came from an object that roamed through the solar system collecting other objects (a celestial garbage truck). This is the preferred origin for both the moons of Mars, so while it might not have come from one of the moons and instead be from an object like Ceres, in any case it is interesting.
What is the urgency of a landing and sample return when Mars is contributing 20 rocks to Antarctica every year? There is even some evidence that these meteorite fragments have interiors where the temperature never rose about 100 F.