FRANCE: Scientists announced Tuesday they had found the crater from which the oldest known Martian meteorite was originally blasted towards Earth, a discovery that could provide clues into how our own planet was formed.
The meteorite NWA 7034, nicknamed Black Beauty, has fascinated geologists since it was discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2011.
It fits easily in the hand, weighing just over 300 grams (10.6 ounces), and contains a mix of materials including zircons, which date back nearly 4.5 billion years. To open that book, a team of researchers at Australia’s Curtin University set out to find the meteorite’s original home on Mars.
They knew that it was likely an asteroid hitting the red planet that sent Black Beauty shooting up into space. The team then created an algorithm and used a supercomputer to trawl through images of 90 million craters taken by a NASA satellite.
That narrowed it down to 19 craters, allowing the researchers to rule out the remaining suspects.
– NDTV