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Mars Box

mars box
mars meteorite
mars box

$39.95

  • Meteorite Type: Martian, NWA 6963
  • Meteorite Weight: 7-17 milligrams. Comes displayed in 2″x 1” presentation box.
  • Additional Information: Researchers estimate that meteorites from Mars are between the ages of 4.5 to 200 billion years old. By comparison, the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, which means some meteorites are as old as our very own planet.Not only are these rocks incredibly ancient, but the journey that they’ve taken to get here is also a perilous one. Few meteorites survive their passage through Earth’s atmosphere, and fewer still are ever recovered by human beings. Meteorites land indiscriminately, and many have fallen in our oceans or in remote areas where they are either unreachable or have been destroyed by the elements. Of the rocks that are successfully recovered, only a small percentage are positively identified as meteorites, let alone meteorites of Martian origin.That’s why fewer than 0.01% of all meteorites discovered on Earth come from the Moon or Mars, and why there are so expensive – few materials are so rare and difficult to come by. Though some Martian meteorite specimens may be very small, they are nonetheless part of our cosmic past and our history. Even the smallest of meteorites is part of a story larger than our own planet’s, and one that dates to the dawn of our solar system.

    Small meteorite specimens give everyone an opportunity to actually hold and own a piece of outer space and are great as unique gifts, learning tools, and just for fun. Aerolite is proud to offer space rocks for less than $200 and as low as $10. Because meteorites are unique, you will receive a similar piece that may not look exactly as photographed. The NASA art may also be different, as shown. Includes an official meteorite classification number and a statement of authenticity on the reverse.

29 in stock

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Description

We know that pieces of the Red Planet fell here because of the robot Viking spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1976. Six years after those landings, Drs. Johnson and Bogard were studying an unusual meteorite, here on Earth; a meteorite with a most unusual name — Elephant Moraine 79001, found in Antarctica in 1979. The two scientists made an astonishing discovery: tiny amounts of gas trapped within vugs in the 79001 meteorite were a close match to the thin atmosphere of Mars, as recorded by the Viking landers. The experiment was later repeated and confirmed by looking at several other Martian meteorites, clearly indicating their origin point. And what a fiery and furious life they’ve had! Blasted off the surface of their home planet by other meteorite impacts (the impactors likely being large asteroid fragments), they wandered in space until falling here. The improbable origin story of Martian meteorites makes them plenty rare — what are the chances that something would be blasted off a smaller planet that is, on average, 140 million miles away and then land on ours? Couple that with the fact that Martian meteorites are fragile; they are essentially cooled lava from another planet and contain little or no metal, meaning that — unlike most meteorites — metal detectors and magnets cannot be used to recover them, making them notoriously difficult to identify and recover in the field.

Additional information

Weight 55 g

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