Meteorite from Mars traced to crater where it was ejected by impact

A meteorite that crashed to Earth more than five million years ago has been traced to a crater on Mars. The rock that will provide clues to the history of the Red Planet was given more context thanks to the information.

Northwest Africa was named after the meteorite that was found in the desert. It is the only known meteorite made of breccia, a type of rock consisting of broken fragments.

Anthony Lagain and his colleagues analysed thousands of high-resolution images of Mars and found 90 million impact craters.

NWA 7034 has one of the highest concentrations of thorium ever measured in a Martian meteorite and is one of the most magnetised. The craters that didn't fit with the age of the rock were ruled out.

Only one crater was found to match. There is an older crater called Dampier. "For the first time, we know the geological context of the only brecciated Martian sample available on Earth, 10 years before NASA's Mars Sample Return mission is set to send back samples."

Read more: Ancient meteorite upends our ideas of how Mars formed

The team hopes to use the same technique to find the craters where other meteorites were ejected from the planet.

NWA 7034 is from a time when Mars was drying out. The asteroid bombardment of Mars may have ended later than was thought, according to further analysis of the rock.

Tracking NWA 7034 to a single crater could provide new information about the history of Mars.

He says the meteorite is very distinctive. If they can say that it comes from this particular crater, that would allow them to look at the geology in that area and to fit the meteorite into some sort of context. There is no context to the meteorite at the moment.

Nature Communications was published in the journal.

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