LOUIS MICHEL - THE MARTIAN METEORITE THAT MOST CLOSELY MATCHES THE MARS PATHFINDER SOILS AND ROCKS. ...

Description

LOUIS MICHEL - THE MARTIAN METEORITE THAT MOST CLOSELY MATCHES THE MARS PATHFINDER SOILS AND ROCKS
NWA 1068 (North West Africa), Picritic Shergottite
Maarir Region, near border of Algerian and Morocco
Found in 2001
This Martian meteorite is similar to DAG 1037 but was formed deeper in the crust of Mars as an ascending magmatic mantle plume when the planet was much more volcanically active. It was ejected in the same catastrophic asteroid impact as the DAG 1037, but its mineralogy almost exactly matches the analyzed soil and rock samples from the Mars Pathfinder, linking the present to the past across millions of miles and hundreds of millions of years - essentially, the Louis Michel meteorite was ejected from the Martian surface hundreds of millions of years before the Mars Pathfinder visited its home and returned with conclusive evidence of its origin. This is a partial slice of a very important meteorite measuring 23mm x 15mm by 1.5mm thick (approximately 29/32 x 19/32 x 1/16 inches) and weighs 2.05 grams.

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