A meteorite found in Morocco and purchased by an American dealer may be worth almost $1 million, according to KRQE. It contains more water than other Martian samples previously found on earth, and is nicknamed "Black Beauty."
The extremely rare rock was analyzed by scientists at the University of New Mexico, and was identified as possibly being from the same area as the current Mars Rovers have been exploring.
Fox News provided a comment by an UNM professor:
"Here we have a piece of Mars that I can hold in my hands. That's really exciting," said Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics and curator at the University of New Mexico who led the study published online Thursday in the journal Science.
Since the sample contains more water than was found in previous meteorites, it may hold clues to a time when Mars was possibly a life-sustaining planet.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the meteorite was at first thought to be just a strange asteroid. Agee puzzled over it, then spent a year studying it thoroughly. He realized that the rock was no ordinary meteorite, but had the same properties as samples recently analyzed by Mars Rover Curiosity. It is now apparent that the meteorite is probably the first sample of its kind from the Mars crust.
Key facts about the meteorite:
- It is about the size of a baseball
- Estimated to be in the ballpark of 2 billion years old
- Scientists think an asteroid may have struck Mars and dislodged this meteor
- Meteorite was apparently found in the Sahara
Meteors can be seen as they fall, and are commonly called "shooting stars." Meteorites are meteors that have survived the fall through Earth's atmosphere.
Scientists are still unsure how long "Black Beauty" has been sitting in the desert where it was found, nor how long it had been in space before crashing to the Earth. Pieces of the rock have been sent to laboratories around the world in hopes of finding out more about the Red Planet from which it came.
