This image, taken on the surface of Mars, by the robotic Curiosity rover, shows a space rock that fell on the Red Planet, an iron meteorite.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS/MSSS
Fig. 1 shows an iron meteorite discovered by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which has been exploring Mars for nearly two years. The meteorite has been dubbed "Lebanon," and it is similar in shape and luster to iron meteorites found on Mars by the previous rover missions, Spirit and Opportunity. Lebanon is about 2 meters across (left to right, from the view in Fig. 1). The smaller fragment in the foreground is called "Lebanon B."
Iron meteorites are not rare among the meteorites found on Earth, but they are less common than stony meteorites. On Mars, iron meteorites are the majority of the few meteorites that have been discovered. This may in part be due to the resistance of iron meteorites to erosion processes on Mars.
Curiosity is a large, car-sized six-wheeled rover. It launched toward Mars, on 26 November 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, aboard a powerful Atlas V rocket. It landed on Mars, inside the Gale Crater, on 6 August 2012. Curiosity’s mission objects include studying the geology and climate of Mars and assessing whether the rover’s landing site has ever been hospitable to microbial life. Curiosity has accomplished its primary goal by finding that the environmental conditions on the Red Planet were once favorable for microbes.
References
NASA
www.nasa.gov/
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