Scientists Pinpoint Origin of Rare Martian Meteorite on Red Planet’s Surface

The precise origin of the 320-gram piece of Martian rock, "Black Beauty" (or NWA 7034), a unique sample containing the oldest fragments of Mars dated to date (4.48 billion years), discovered in 2011 in Morocco, near Bir Anzarane, an oasis in the Sahara, is now known. An international team led by Curtin University, which publishes its results in the journal Nature Communications, has identified the Karratha crater as its ejection site, reports scienceetavenir.fr.

To reach this conclusion, the scientists used two tools: an artificial intelligence algorithm and the fastest supercomputer in the Southern Hemisphere, the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, in Perth (Australia). In less than 24 hours, more than 90 million impact craters on the surface of the Red Planet were mapped.

"For the first time, we know the geological context of the only Martian impact breccia sample available on Earth, 10 years before the NASA Mars Sample Return mission returns the samples collected by the Perseverance rover currently exploring the Jezero crater," says Anthony Lagain, who initiated this investigation, in a press release.