Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The geological history of Mars can be broadly classified into many epochs, but the following are the three major ones: Noachian epoch (named after Noachis Terra): Formation of the oldest extant surfaces of Mars, 3.8 billion years ago to 3.5 billion years ago. Noachian age surfaces are scarred by many large impact craters.
The Martian meteorite NWA 7034 (nicknamed "Black Beauty"), found in the Sahara desert during 2011, has ten times the water content of other Mars meteorites found on Earth. [2] The meteorite contains components as old as 4.42 ± 0.07 Ga (billion years), [25] and was heated during the Amazonian geologic period on Mars. [26]
Extraterrestrial meteorites have been found on the Moon and on Mars. [3] [4] [5] Most space rocks crashing into Earth come from a single source. The origin of most meteorites can be traced to just a handful of asteroid breakup events – and possibly even individual asteroids. [6]
Metamorphic rocks are typically found in areas of mountain building. Rock can also form in the absence of a substantial pressure gradient as material that condensed from a protoplanetary disk, without ever undergoing any transformations in the interior of a large object such as a planet or moon. Astrophysicists classify this as a fourth type of ...
One rock, "Bounce Rock," found sitting on the sandy plains was found to be ejecta from an impact crater. Its chemistry was different from the bedrocks. Containing mostly pyroxene and plagioclase and no olivine, it closely resembled a part, Lithology B, of the shergottite meteorite EETA 79001, a meteorite known to have come from Mars.
Now, Perseverance will be looking for rocks believed to have originated from deep inside Mars that, after the crater-forming impact, were thrown upward to form the rim. Eric Lagatta covers ...
Noachian Period (named after Noachis Terra): Formation of the oldest extant surfaces of Mars between 4.1 and about 3.7 Gya. Noachian-aged surfaces are scarred by many large impact craters. The Tharsis bulge is thought to have formed during the Noachian, along with extensive erosion by liquid water producing river valley networks. Large lakes or ...
Jupiter and Saturn have several large moons, such as Io, Europa, Ganymede and Titan, which may have originated from discs around each giant planet in much the same way that the planets formed from the disc around the Sun. [88] [89] [90] This origin is indicated by the large sizes of the moons and their proximity to the planet. These attributes ...