Impact Crater Origin of Mars Meteorites Discovered

astroengine writes "Out of the thousands of craters scarring the face of Mars, one has emerged as the likely source of most of the Martian meteorites that have been recovered on Earth, a new study shows. Researchers pinpoint Mojave Crater, a 34 mile (55 kilometer) wide basin on the planet's equator, as the origin of the so-called 'shergottites' meteorites, a family that includes about 75 percent of the roughly 150 known Martian meteorites. The crater is located slightly north and east of Meridian Planum, where NASA's Mars rover Opportunity landed in January 2004."

Comments

Very fast meteorites?

[MRe_nl]

"Based on the amount of cosmic ray exposure the meteorites experience in space, scientists estimate the rocks spent 5 million years in interplanetary space before reaching Earth".

"Mojave Crater is relatively young, formed from an impact that took place less than 5 million years".

Re:Very fast meteorites?

[rmdingler]

Perhaps it's merely a daylight savings time discrepancy.

Re:Very fast meteorites?

[tomhath]

5+5 = 10 Think about it.

Re:Very fast meteorites?

[VortexCortex]

No, we've been over this. Everyone known that 5 million + 5 million is either: A million or 12 million, but not 10 million.
Stop forgetting to account for the waste of computation cycles, NPoT scum.

Re:Very fast meteorites?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Huh?

Re:Very fast meteorites?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Maybe... Although it referred to the crater, the word relatively might be the important one.

Must have been a hell of a battle.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the end, the Martians just couldn't stand up to the Europan planet-buster. Game over for them.

Shoggoth meteorites?

[Gothmolly]

Anyone else read that as "Shoggoth" and assume THATS how they came to Earth?

Re:Shoggoth meteorites?

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Where are the sulfates?

[Squidlips]

Why don't the shergottites have sulfate salts like the rest of Meridian Planum?

Re:Where are the sulfates?

[flyingfsck]

Well, clearly, the Hittites harvested the sulfate salts from the Meridium Planum and sold it to the Shergottites, much to the dismay of the Stalagmites, so that may explain it...