Mars Rock Found In Antarctica

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Mars Rock Found In Antarctica

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 21, 2004 @06:49AM from the it-was-lonely dept.

lousyd writes "Scientists with with ANSMET, the Antarctic Search for Meteorites, have found a meteorite in the Antarctic that apparently has come from Mars. Weighing in at 715.2 grams, the find has been confirmed by the National Museum of Natural History. The rock is a member of the 'nakhlite' set, and has been named MIL 03346. By having the real thing before them, this offers Mars researchers a reality check on the data coming back from the various probes currently on Mars."

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Welll by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 07:03 · Score: 0

If we can find Mars rocks here, is it really necessary spending all this money to go to Mars?
1. Re:Welll by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 07:59 · Score: 0, Insightful
  
  Yes.
I'm curious... by GedConk · 2004-07-21 07:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

How can they be sure that it comes from Mars and not from an asteroid/comet/moon/whatever ?
1. Re:I'm curious... by Futurepower(R) · 2004-07-21 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly. How?
2. Re:I'm curious... by anim8 · 2004-07-21 07:27 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The Viking landers of the 70s identified the unique chemical compostion of Mars rocks. Likewise, the earth, moon and meteorites have their own unique characteristics.
  
  Read More
3. Re:I'm curious... by MarsDefenseMinister · 2004-07-21 07:32 · Score: 1
  
  You can reach the following with a Google "feeling lucky" search on "meteorite Vesta":
  http://www.solarviews.com/cap/meteor/vest amet.htm
  
  This describes some other meteorites that we know with good certainty come from the asteroid Vesta. The process is the same for knowing a meteorite came from Mars.
  
  --
  No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
4. Re:I'm curious... by GedConk · 2004-07-21 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  It's amazing to see how, even with such limited data, scientists are able to determine the origin of those rocks. Anyone know what to look for when searching meteorites ? My guess would be to look for an impact crater and check for unusual rocks but then again, IANAGeologist. I guess luck also plays a big role in that ;)
5. Re:I'm curious... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 07:52 · Score: 0
  
  Well, they don't give out research grants if you just say the rock was from Antarctica.
  However if you say the rock was from MARS they will give you a big grant.
  Therefore, this rock must be from MARS.
6. Re:I'm curious... by b-baggins · 2004-07-21 07:53 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Why should the Oxygen isotopes be different in different parts of the solar system? Didn't we supposedly all coalesce out of the same cloud of stuff?
  
  --
  You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
7. Re:I'm curious... by MarsDefenseMinister · 2004-07-21 08:15 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Same cloud, but it wasn't uniform. Each planet is different from each other, and from the Sun. They also came out of the same cloud.
  
  --
  No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
8. Re:I'm curious... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 08:18 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Anyone know what to look for when searching meteorites ?
  Antarctica really is the best place to look for meteorites. There are huge areas where the only rocks are metoeorites (the rest is snow and ice). I'm sure it's on ANSMET's site some place, but I can't find it. Part of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet flows into the Transantarctic Mountaains. As the ice flows up the mountainside it sublimated by strong winds (nasty place). Any rocks in the ice are left just sitting on the surface. The dark rocks stand out well on the blue ice.
9. Re:I'm curious... by MarsDefenseMinister · 2004-07-21 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  A lot of meteorites will be small. Smaller than your fist. Maybe as big as a small marble. These won't leave craters. Other than that, I don't know how to hunt for them.
  
  --
  No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
10. Re:I'm curious... by Somegeek · 2004-07-21 08:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  A really simple explanation from NASA:
  "Most martian meteorites are 1.3 billion years old or less, much younger than typical igneous meteorites from asteroids which are 4.5 billion years old. They also have higher contents of volatiles than igneous meteorites. The conclusive evidence that the SNC meteorites originated on Mars comes from the measurement of gases trapped in one meteorite's interior. The trapped gases match those that Viking measured in the martian atmosphere."
  
  For more detail:
  http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/curator/antmet/mar smets/Text.htm
  
  --
  And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
11. Re:I'm curious... by nlindstrom · 2004-07-21 10:43 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  By having the real thing before them, this offers Mars researchers a reality check on the data coming back from the various probes currently on Mars.
  Bzzzzt! Wrong! You cannot compare A with B and use B to verify A if you are unable to independently verify B first. In other words, since we've yet to bring back any samples from Mars, we cannot know for certain that the Arctic rock is indeed Martian, and therefore cannot use it to sanity-check the data coming from Mars.
  It's a great case of a cyclic logic falicy: A agrees with B, therefore B verifies A. It's like saying God exists because the bible says so, and the bible is correct about God's existence since God wrote the bible.
12. Re:I'm curious... by GedConk · 2004-07-21 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  Feel free to move along and just ignore.
13. Re:I'm curious... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 11:33 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  It's not as simple as you think (pretend?). There are many facts in a single rock. A good geologist could probably tell you over a hundered things about a single rock. A thousand if you gave them a bunch of money to run some expensive tests. Not just one. For example, trapped gasses show the rock came from Mars because it matches the air sampled by probes. You can then use other facts about the rock to tell you more about rocks seen by probes on Mars.
  It's funny how people on Slashdot are so sure they know so much more than people who spend their entire lives on a topic. Do you have also have a plan for cleaning the solar panels that you're sure NASA missed?
  I also don't know what your comment has to do with the parent comment maybe you clicked in the wrong place? While I'm picking at nits, I'd like to point out that they are Antarctic rocks.
14. Re:I'm curious... by prof_peabody · 2004-07-21 15:42 · Score: 1
  
  People ask so many basic questions on slashdot. All these computer geeks know nothing about the world around them.
  
  Even on earth there is isotope partitioning. Lighter isotopes of water will evaporate preferentially (cause they're lighter). If we're in a glacial stage, these superlights will get deposited in glaciers, and leave the oceans with heavier isotopes of oxygen. Hence oxygen isotope dating... Look it up, the worls around us is very interesting.
15. Re:I'm curious... by dnahelix · 2004-07-21 17:01 · Score: 1
  
  HA HA, still have excellent karma!
  More importantly, I can find the answers myself!
  
  --
  Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
  They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
  I Hate \.
16. Re:I'm curious... by linzeal · 2004-07-21 18:26 · Score: 1
  
  It is mostly argon, it reacts only under utterly insane conditions. If we took the same measurement on any planet with an atmopshere and found gas within a rock somewhere we could identify its origin, even if it came from another solar system once we have better scopes up.
  
  --
  An Education is the Font of All Liberty
17. Re:I'm curious... by some+guy+I+know · 2004-07-21 20:00 · Score: 1
  How can they be sure that it comes from Mars and not from an steroid/comet/moon/whatever ?
  
  Exactly. How?
  
  Turn rock over.
  
  Look for sticker that says "Made on Mars".
  --
  Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Yeah! by escher · 2004-07-21 07:17 · Score: 1

Mars rocks!

Sorry... bad pun... no karma bonus... overuse of periods... running away now...
Extraterrestrial Rocks by anim8 · 2004-07-21 07:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

The cool thing about Antarctica (no pun intended) is that if you see any rocks sitting on top of the ice they most likely came from outer space.

I've heard that you are most likely to find them near the bases of mountain ranges where the swirling winds scours away the ice and snow better, revealing alien rocks and pebbles that have been covered for millenia.

I'd guess there are tons of Martian rocks under the ice, perhaps some from Venus, lots of moon rocks ... and many more run-of-the-mill meteorites.
Venus rocks not likely by missing000 · 2004-07-21 07:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

Remember folks, launching stuff into a much higher orbit requires lots of energy.

The reason Mars rocks get here is because they are intercepted on their way to the sun.
1. Re:Venus rocks not likely by anim8 · 2004-07-21 07:31 · Score: 1
  
  A comet or large asteroid could pull Venus' ejectae and send it into a higher or irregular orbit that could eventually cross paths with earth.
2. Re:Venus rocks not likely by missing000 · 2004-07-21 09:38 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  A comet or large asteroid could pull Venus' ejectae and send it into a higher or irregular orbit that could eventually cross paths with earth.
  Not to be mean, but pigs could fly too. Really, the chances of this are really quite slim. I don't have the data set to prove it, but I'd expect the probability of Venus originated meteorites in the once-in-a-billion-year range or so.
  
  Martian meteors on the other hand happen quite regularly.
  
  In fact, there is a large list of Martian matter found on earth, but there has never been a meteor found from another planet.
  
  My guess is the layout of the solar system is at fault here. Our neighbors to the inner solar system are at a gravitational disadvantage, and those outside of Mars are simply too large to have meaningful ejections until you get to Pluto, but it's so far away and so small that the chances are really small there as well.
3. Re:Venus rocks not likely by Urkki · 2004-07-21 10:08 · Score: 2, Insightful
  Remember folks, launching stuff into a much higher orbit requires lots of energy.
  
  The reason Mars rocks get here is because they are intercepted on their way to the sun.
  
  Bzz. Wrong. Launching stuff to a much lower orbit also requires lots of energy. Basically the energy requirement is the same between two orbits, no matter wether you go from a lower to a higher orbit or the other way around. Quite obivious when you think about it, otherwise you could make perpetual motion machine, tapping the energy difference...
4. Re:Venus rocks not likely by rk · 2004-07-21 10:25 · Score: 1
  
  Well, actually, they are intercepted on their way to an orbit closer to the sun. To actually get to the sun from a planetary orbit requires quite a bit of delta-v.
  
  Interestingly, it actually takes more delta-v to get to the Sun from Earth (31.8 km/sec) that it does just to break away from the Earth (11.2 km/sec).
5. Re:Venus rocks not likely by barakn · 2004-07-21 10:33 · Score: 1
  
  Oddly enough, putting things into lower orbits also requires energy. The Mars rock weren't necessarily on their way to the sun. All we really know about them is that Earth orbit came somewhere between the rocks' perihelions and aphelions.
  
  --
  "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
6. Re:Venus rocks not likely by Chuck1318 · 2004-07-21 12:02 · Score: 1
  
  There are two meteorites that are thought to have come from Venus, see here.
7. Re:Venus rocks not likely by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-22 03:08 · Score: 0
  
  You assume that you want to have a stable orbit. If you don't have the velocity to maintain your higher orbit, you will naturally fall to lower orbits. And it is a lot easier to change kinetic energy into other forms of energy than it is to do the opposite.
  
  It is far more likely for you to lose the kinetic energy and fall out of orbit than it is for you to gain it and climb to a higher orbit
8. Re:Venus rocks not likely by Urkki · 2004-07-22 04:31 · Score: 1
  You assume that you want to have a stable orbit. If you don't have the velocity to maintain your higher orbit, you will naturally fall to lower orbits.
  
  No you don't. Quite simply you are always are in a stable orbit, and you will return to about the same spot in space after one complete orbit around the center of gravity (assuming no orbit-changing close encounters or collisions with another object, and not using a rocket motor, etc).
  
  I recommend basic Newtonian physics.
  
  Your mistake is understandable though. Human intuition says that things must fall down, but that's only because human intuition is used to having air resistance that takes away energy, and having surface of earth to collide with. In empty space there's neither (well, usuallly, the meteorites found in Antarctica clearly did collide with Earth just after experiencing some serious air resistance... ;-).
  
  It is far more likely for you to lose the kinetic energy and fall out of orbit than it is for you to gain it and climb to a higher orbit
  
  You can't "fall out of orbit". Orbit is stable unless you constantly decrease/increase kinetic energy *without* increasing potential energy at the same time (for example by using air resistance to slow down or propulsion to either slow down or accelerate). As soon as you stop doing that (turn of the rocket motor, exit an atmosphere), you are again in a stable orbit, new and different one but stable none the less.
makes me think by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 07:30 · Score: 0

of Dan's Brown book Deception Point
Good information above by Engineer-Poet · 2004-07-21 08:36 · Score: 1

If you take in the accounts of people who have gone to Antarctica to hunt meteorites (which they do every southern summer), you'll get an idea of how relatively easy it is to find them there.
It's so easy, researchers have actually done it by robot.

--

Sustainability and energy independence essay
But not for that reason by Engineer-Poet · 2004-07-21 08:42 · Score: 1

There is speculation that there are rocks on Mars which originated on Earth, but I've heard nothing about suspected Venus meteorites. Earth and Venus have roughly the same escape velocity, but that's not the problem so much as the atmosphere; it would take a much larger rock hitting Venus to deliver the same energy to the surface, and ejecta would have their energy drained by the CO2 soup and be far less likely to escape.

--

Sustainability and energy independence essay
1. Re:But not for that reason by Birger+Johansson · 2004-07-21 10:18 · Score: 1
  
  In theory, Venus ejecta might have been launched during the early "era of heavy bombardment", when the solar system was young and Venus had not yet undergone a "runaway greenhouse" and had a thin atmosphere.
  Both Earth and Venus were repeatedly hit by very large planetesimals, and would have ejected much material into space.
  
  Any venusian rocks that hit Earth would have been destroyed by erosion or tectonic activity long ago, but in theory there might be rocks from both the young Venus and the young Earth buried under a thick layer of regolith on the *moon*, since apart from impacts, the lunar surface has not been altered much since the solar system was young.
  However, such rocks would be very small needles in a very large haystack. Even if they look different from most lunar rocks (because their surfaces would show signs of ablation from when they were ejected upards through the atmosphere) I do not recommend anyone to spend much time looking for them.
  The difficulties of finding such rocks might well be as immense as trying to find preserved dinosaur DNA here on Earth :-)
This is science?! by nusratt · 2004-07-21 09:27 · Score: 1

original article posting: "this Antarctic meteorite offers Mars researchers a reality check on the data coming back from the various probes currently on Mars."

posting #9762667: Q: "How can they be sure that it comes from Mars?" A: "The Viking landers of the 70s identified the unique chemical compostion of Mars rocks."

Let me see . . . We know this meteorite is from Mars, because of evidence from space missions. And we know that we can trust the space-mission data, because it agrees with this meteorite from Mars.

Hmmm . . .
1. Re:This is science?! by Urkki · 2004-07-21 10:20 · Score: 1
  
  Well, I guess we're pretty sure they're not from Earth... And they are (I imagine) easy to re-examine, so measurement error sounds very unlikely.
  
  So, assuming that Mars probe results match the rocks, either
  
  a) both meteor and probe measurements are faulty, but by co-incidence or systematic error they match each others
  
  b1) rocks are not from mars, probe results are faulty but by incredible co-incidence look just like the Antarctica meteors from somewhere else
  
  b2) like b1, except probe results are not faulty, but by even more incredible co-incidence they also measured meteors from same source, not "native" martian material.
  
  c) both results are correct, the meteors are from mars
  
  Now if the results would *not* match, then we'd have a puzzle in our hands...
2. Re:This is science?! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 11:55 · Score: 0
  
  Posting #9764821 explains why there's isn't anything to "Hmmm..." about.
3. Re:This is science?! by nusratt · 2004-07-21 14:41 · Score: 1
  
  "Posting #9764821 explains . . . "
  
  Yep, sure does. And as I said:
  "And the scientists are probably right. Nonetheless, it's STILL circular."
you fail it! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 09:30 · Score: 0

na! you fail it!
self-fulfilling prophecy by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 09:40 · Score: 0

we have a rock, we presume it's from mars, because it matches what we expect a mars rock to be, now we're going to use to validate our assumptions about mars rocks?
Highly speculative; science hypocrisy by nusratt · 2004-07-21 12:01 · Score: 1

You're comments are all on-point. And the scientists are probably right.

Nonetheless, it's STILL circular to say, "The meteorite is Martian, and so it confirms the telemetry from the probes" and "The telemetry from Mars missions confirms that the meteorite is Martian."

There are many alternative (although unlikely) explanations.
The point is this:
the scientific community TYPICALLY demands a maddeningly-strict standard for "common-sense" hypotheses -- especially when there's an axe to grind, e.g. professional envy, or belittling people who say "It's obvious that animals have emotions." So the standard should be consistent.
1. Re:Highly speculative; science hypocrisy by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 13:27 · Score: 0
  
  Duh. One of the armchair experts in here is full of shit. What did you expect?
STOP with the "Bzzzzt! Wrong!" crap!!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 19:56 · Score: 0

STOP with the "Bzzzzt! Wrong!" crap!!!! It's fucking annoying.
Stop saying "Bzz. Wrong.". by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-21 20:04 · Score: 0

Stop saying "Bzz. Wrong.". It's annoying.
1. Re:Stop saying "Bzz. Wrong.". by Urkki · 2004-07-21 22:34 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, but that's why it's also so very satisfying ;-)
But, is the label genuine? by Futurepower(R) · 2004-07-22 02:06 · Score: 1

To know that the label is genuine, look for the small print at the bottom that says, "Printed in China."
But ... by gstoddart · 2004-07-22 02:13 · Score: 1

Basically the energy requirement is the same between two orbits, no matter wether you go from a lower to a higher orbit or the other way around. Quite obivious when you think about it, otherwise you could make perpetual motion machine, tapping the energy difference...

But how are we supposed to spin the Enterprise around the sun and travel through time then Mr Smarty Pants? ;-)

--
Lost at C:>. Found at C.