Mars provides a unique, accessible record of early planetary formation and differentiation processes obscured by subsequent evolution on Earth, e.g., by erosion, internal differentiation, and plate tectonics. Currently, studies rely […]
The presence of water on Mars has been crucial in determining whether or not life might have existed there. The Viking Landers in the 1970s first detected the presence of […]
For the first time, definitive evidence of a large impact event has been found in a martian meteorite. Zircons are geologically important minerals that can retain primary chronological information, helping […]
The Allan Hills 84001 (ALH 84001) martian meteorite is an approximately four billion-year-old igneous rock composed primarily of the mineral orthopyroxene. It was discovered in Antarctica in 1984 and subsequently […]
One stated goal of the current generation of Mars rovers is to search for possible ancient biosignatures on Mars. However, the question of what a genuine biosignature would look like […]
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory has reported the presence of many chlorine- and sulfur-bearing organic materials near Gale crater. Similarly, organic carbon-bearing compounds have been found in carbonate minerals in the […]
At one point in its history, conditions on Mars allowed liquid water—and potentially life—to exist on its surface. Today, however, the temperature and atmospheric conditions on Mars make liquid water […]
A new study reports evidence of shock-induced aqueous alteration recorded in a group of martian meteorites, the nakhlites. The nakhlites are igneous rocks, rich in the mineral augite, that crystallized […]
The Tissint meteorite fell to Earth in 2011 in the Moroccan desert. Tissant is a shergottite, an igneous rock that crystallized on Mars about 575 million years ago. Because it […]
A new study led by Anne Peslier (NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston) investigates the water contents and hydrogen isotope ratios of nakhlites, which are martian meteorites derived from volcanic lava […]
A team of scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has found evidence of past water movement throughout a Martian meteorite, […]