Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Rock On! Curiosity Spots a Heavy Metal Meteorite

Rock On! Curiosity Spots a Heavy Metal Meteorite:



2-meter wide iron meteorite dubbed "Lebanon," as imaged by Curiosity's ChemCam and Mastcam on May 25, 2014

2-meter wide iron meteorite dubbed “Lebanon,” as imaged by Curiosity’s ChemCam and Mastcam on May 25, 2014
Talk about heavy metal! This shiny, lumpy rock spotted by NASA’s Curiosity rover is likely made mostly of iron — and came from outer space! It’s an iron meteorite, similar to ones found in years past by Curiosity’s forerunners Spirit and Opportunity, but is considerably larger than any of the ones the MER rovers came across… in fact, at 2 meters (6.5 feet) wide this may very well be the biggest meteorite ever discovered on Mars!

Click the image for a supermetallicious high-resolution version from JPL’s Planetary Photojournal.



The picture above was made by combining high-resolution circular images (outlined in white) acquired with the Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) of Curiosity’s ChemCam instrument with color and context from the rover’s Mastcam. The images were taken on mission Sol 640 (May 25, 2014).

Dubbed “Lebanon,” the large meteorite has a smaller fragment lying alongside it, named “Lebanon B.”

While iron meteorites are relatively common on Earth, on Mars they are the most common types of meteorites that have been discovered — if just for the sheer fact that they are highly resistant to erosion.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS/MSSS

Source: NASA

Tagged as:
ChemCam,
Curiosity,
JPL,
Lebanon,
Mars,
Mastcam,
meteorite

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