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Rare Water-Rich Mars Meteorite Discovered
astroengine writes "A rare Martian meteorite recently found in Morocco contains minerals with 10 times more water than previously discovered Mars meteorites, a finding that raises new questions about when and how long the planet most like Earth in the solar system had conditions suitable for life. The meteorite, known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, is the second-oldest of 110 named stones originating from Mars that have been retrieved on Earth. Purchased from a Moroccan meteorite dealer in 2011, the black, baseball-sized stone, which weighs less than 1 pound, is 2.1 billion years old, meaning it formed during what is known as the early Amazonian era in Mars' geologic history. 'It's from a time on Mars that we actually don't know much about,' geologist Carl Agee, with the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, told Discovery News."
Firstly, we probe for much much more than just water.
Secondly, we don't get more information from looking at a rock in Africa. We get some information, and it's different from the information we get from Mars itself.
Thirdly, this is from very early Mars history. It's very different to current Mars.
And to think we could have invested that entire $2b USD in one of our $multi-trillion USD wars, instead of squandering it on mere "science".
Or more super computers for New Mexico. Apparently they don't have nearly enough of them.
I'm put'n the trailer back on the rocket. It's time to colomonize me some mars!
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
How does someone become a meteorite dealer?
Without the money spent on probes (and, in particular, without the Apollo Lunar samples and the Viking Mars descent mass spectrometer), we wouldn't know that this was a Martian rock.
But we could have given it to condensed matter physics research, which gets way less than NASA, or other branches of physics, such as particle physics, yet has numerous applications, while still contributing to our fundamental understanding of the world, through applications of quantum field theory and statistical mechanics.
Does anyone else think they could have picked a better acronym for Africa than NWA?
The article is very short on explanations. For instance:
1/ When they say 'Martian meteorite' do they mean that it actually came from the surface of mars or rather than it's general origin was near to the orbit of mars?
2/ What guarantees are there that this rock is actually from mars?
3/ If so, how can you explain the parent meteor escaping the gravity well of mars? If this piece of rock is about a kilogram, then its entry mass must have been be quite large. The meteorite in California that was tracked with radar (the Sutton Mill's meteorite in 2008) and later collected had an estimated mass of 40,000 kg but only about 1 kg was recoverable from pieces much smaller than the one in the story.
4/ Following this, it would seem an improbable event that a/ there would be some impact on mars that would send ejecta as large as 40000 kg out of mars orbit and that b/ this orbit would be towards the earth. Any impact that could send ejecta into escape velocity would almost have to be tangential to the surface, and even then it is difficult to see how such an impact could even produce large ejecta as the impact would skim more across the surface rather than into the interior of the planet.
5/ usually dating of the material and its mineral composition leads to a supposition that it is of planetary origin. And yet this rock has a different material composition than martian rocks, as per the article. Thus it seems that the entire hypothesis that it came from mars should actually be questioned instead of inferring that mars had more water than because of the composition of this meteorite.
Just how can they actually prove that the rock came from mars? It seems Occam's razor needs some sharpening.
I remember not long ago that they were saying that the Corvid meteoroids were ejecta from the Giordano Bruno impact. This was proven false: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993JGR....98.9145H
1. How do we know that a rock is from Mars, especially when its composition is different from what we've found on Mars to date.
2. How do rocks leave Mars' gravity well in the first place? Are they shrapnel from Mars being hit by big meteorites?
Hilarious. Beats the hell out of "Ghostbuster".
No one else could possibly get past 9 molecules.
We spend $2 billion on a Mars rover, and then Wham!, a Mars rock lands on somebody's ass.
Table-ized A.I.
We spend billions on probes, and get more information from looking at a rock in Africa.
Nice work NASA.
I imagine if we probed your ass we'd discover a passaage all the way across the Milky Way, perhaps?
Sigh. Venus gets no love. Ironic, isn't it?
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
In other news, Martian authorities report that a rare Earth meteor has been discovered to contain 10 times as much fissionable material as found in previous Earth meteorites. The finding calls into question previous assumptions within the scientific community that Earth may contain little fissionable material and therefore was deemed unlikely to support life. Still, some Martians are asking tough questions: "How do you know it came from Earth? Where's your proof? How do we know you're not just trying to save your precious space budget when we have more important things to worry about, like climbing out of the so-called Fiscal Crater?"
We spend billions on probes, and get more information from looking at a rock in Africa.
Nice work NASA.
I imagine if we probed your ass we'd discover a pasaage all the way across the Milky Way, perhaps?
Or at least to Uranus.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
When the Martians come here to do their anal probes, are they looking for water?
Just asking!
Venus is most like Earth in the solar system, not Mars.
We spend billions on probes, and get some complementary information from looking at a rock in Africa.
It's a bit like asking why we sent the Viking landers when we can see it's red from here.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Liquid crystal technology. Thank you, Kent State.
> Purchased from a Moroccan meteorite dealer in 2011
How do I get a job like that? Does anyone know someone that needs a house clearance or some such that may pop up a couple of meteorites I could stick on Ebay?
(I'll name all my meteorites after music acts: NWA 7034, The Rolling Stones 2309, The meteorite formerly known as Prince 3476...)
Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The Pork is in Houston with their manned missions, not JPL in California that does the unmanned missions. Houston is now building a Pork-extravaganza called the Space Launch System (SLS)--called "The Rocket to Nowhere" because it has no mission except to create income for aerospace execs in Houston.
WHEREAS we have spent an incredible amount of money sending probes to Mars looking for traces of water only to find it on a meteorite that has impacted Earth;
WHEREAS an inordinate amount of science has been conducted by lazy couch potato researchers utilizing passive methods of data collection of the cosmos, and this phenomenon in combination with illicit 64oz 'Big Gulp' sales has resulted in an epidemic of obesity among our revered scientists;
WHEREAS several years' drought have reduced the yield of the annual rattlesnake hunt, a time honored tradition and risk-taking coming-of-age ritual of adolescence;
WHEREAS the idea of humanity expanding its frontiers by populating the cosmos has been a crackpot idea from the start, as it has been discovered that Planet Earth has been part of the cosmos all along;
IT IS THEREFORE RESOLVED that all efforts of space exploration by humans be abandoned, and humanities sole endeavor from this day forward shall be to develop robotic technology to divert meteorites and large asteroids onto a collision path with Earth, so we may learn even more about the universe in which we live, a 3km asteroid would provide enough data for generations of scientific study;
IT IS FURTHER RESOLVED that the National annual 'varmit hunt' be re-tasked as the 'annual 3km asteroid flaming firestorm of death as we gather valuable spectroscopy data during its final approach ' hunt.
Keep watching the skies. The truth is actually hidden under that grimy layer in your bellybutton.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>