Meteorite Found in Sahara is Piece of Mars at Least 4.1 Billion Years Old

A meteorite found in the Sahara Desert in Mali in 2022 has been identified as a fragment of Mars' primordial crust. Named Teghaza 001 after the Teghaza salt plain where it was discovered, the meteorite consists of eight stone fragments from a rose-colored rock. According to a study published in the journal Science, the rock formed at least 4.1 billion years ago, making it one of the most ancient Martian meteorites identified on Earth.

The meteorite contains a combination of igneous minerals that provide information on how the Martian crust formed from cooling magma before being altered by subsurface water, according to Discover Magazine. Smithsonian reports that these rare samples offer clues about the youth of the Red Planet and suggest it may have once been a watery world with conditions that could host life.

Ars Technica Science notes that while most Martian surface features are more than 3 billion years old, the three main classes of Martian meteorites on Earth are 2.4 billion years old or younger. Teghaza 001 is the third known genuinely ancient Martian meteorite, following Allan Hills 84001 and the rock nicknamed Black Beauty. Yang Liu of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggested that the rarity of old Martian rocks on Earth may be due to a natural filtering process where only strong rocks survive the impact required to launch them off the planet.

Brief written by urgent.news from Sci.News, Discover Magazine, Smithsonian, Ars Technica Science — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.