Possible Meteorite Imaged by Opportunity

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Now that's cool!

If the spectrometer verifies this, would this be the first confirmed meteorite found on an extra-terrestrial body?

The craters are obvious proof of these meteorite impacts, but it's always cool to finally find one intact, not unlike when we finally found a living giant squid for the first time a few years ago.

Actually, this is not the first confirmed meteorite found on a planetary body. That happened in late 2004/early 2005. The Opportunity rover found an iron-rich meteorite sitting on the surface of Mars very close to the impact sight of the heat shield used by the rover/lander during the descent through the Mars atmosphere. You can read more about that find in the press release that was issued at the time.

-dave



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