A meteorite from Mars 200 million kilometers away... Found the hometown of 'Black Beauty'
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Mars, which is the most similar to Earth in the solar system, orbits the Sun at a distance of 56 million kilometers from Earth and 400 million kilometers from Earth. Millions of years ago, a giant asteroid struck Mars, an average of 225 million kilometers from Earth. The impact threw chunks of rock on Mars' surface into space. One of them flew hundreds of millions of kilometers and landed in the Western Sahara Desert in Morocco, northwest of the African continent. The rock, which was buried in desert sand and appeared in the world in 2011, was passed on to the United States through the hands of an American meteorite collector.
Earthlings gave the rock the nickname 'Black Beauty', along with the official name 'NWA 7034' (Northwest Africa 7034) after the area where it was discovered. The shiny black Black Beauty is a set consisting of a large rock weighing 320g and a pair of small stones. Scientists dated it and found that Black Beauty is the oldest Martian meteorite ever discovered on Earth.
An international research team led by scientists from Curtin University, Australia, with the help of artificial intelligence, confirmed where the meteorite came from on Mars, and recently published it in the international scientific journal Nature Communications. The hometown of the meteorite the researchers found is a crater in the northeastern part of Terra Cimmeria-Sirenum, in the southern highlands of Mars, where numerous craters are clustered. It is close to the area where the Mars robot rover Spirit landed in 2004. "This is the first time that the geological context of Mars specimens on Earth has been confirmed," said Professor Anthony
Possesses early material on Mars 4.5 billion years ago
The Black Beauty meteorite contains Martian matter from 4.48 billion years ago. 4.48 billion years is when only 50 million years have passed since the birth of Mars. Therefore, identifying the hometown of this meteorite is very important for elucidating the early history of Mars.
"The region identified as the home of this unique Martian meteorite is a window of truth into the early environments of planets, including Earth," said Professor Lagaine. On the other hand, the Earth has completely lost its original shape due to tectonic plate movement and erosion.
So far, about 300 Martian meteorites have been discovered on Earth. Black Beauty is the only breccia cancer among them. A breccia is a sedimentary rock that is hardened by a collection of small, angular particles. It is created by weathering, erosion, destruction of faults, or volcanic eruptions. Thus, unlike other Martian meteorites, which consist of only one type of rock, several types of rock fragments are combined.
The zircon crystals in the meteorite are the product of a devastating shock received 4.45 billion years ago. Scientists estimate that there must have been at least three impacts, given the state of matter in the meteorite.
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One by one analysis with artificial intelligence and supercomputer
But among the 94 million large and small craters over 25 meters in diameter on Mars, it was very difficult to trace the home of the meteorite. The researchers analyzed the size and location of each crater using a specially developed algorithm and supercomputer.
First of all, as a result of analyzing crater photos taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it was found that most small craters are mainly distributed in large craters with a width of more than 3 km and formation within 10 million years. This means that the smaller craters may be secondary craters created in the aftermath of a larger primary impact.
The research team first selected 19 craters large enough to send debris from the impact into space as candidates for the hometown of the black beauty meteorite. After comparing the physical and chemical properties of each crater and Black Beauty, an exact match was found. The crater was rich in thorium and potassium, just like Black Beauty. The magnetism of the crater was similar to that of a meteorite.
The researchers named this crater 'Karata'. Karata is the name of an Australian city in the area where rocks (3.5 billion years old) that are now believed to be one of the oldest on Earth have been found.
Hope to elucidate the early history of rocky planets
According to the research team's analysis, the roots of black beauty can be traced back to the ancient times of Noakia on Mars. During this period, about 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago, Mars had an atmosphere and was warm enough to rain, scientists estimate, and therefore had lakes, rivers and oceans. Researchers at the University of Arizona, who collaborated on the study, said Mars at the time would have had a crust similar to today's Iceland. And collisions with asteroids were very frequent.
One of the asteroids struck the Terra Cimeria-Syrenum region, creating a 25 km wide Dampier crater. Then, 1.5 billion years ago, another asteroid fell near the Dampier crater, creating the 40-kilometer-wide Kuzirat crater. In the aftermath of the devastating impact, the eruption covered the nearby Dampier crater. The eruption solidified into rock over the years. The rock that became the prototype of Black Beauty was formed at this time.
The third asteroid impact occurred between 5 and 10 million years ago. The impact left behind the Karata crater with a diameter of 10 km. In the aftermath, many fragments, including Black Beauty, were thrown from Mars and started wandering through space.
The research team believes that the algorithm used to find the hometown of Black Beauty this time can be applied to unlocking the secrets of other celestial bodies in the solar system, such as Mercury and the Moon.
The researchers also expected that the Karata crater could be an ideal landing site for future Mars exploration, which will investigate the early tens of millions of years of history of rocky planets including Earth as well as Mars.
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