babble out about big metal ! This shiny , lumpy rock pick out by NASA ’s Curiosity rover is likely made mostly of Fe — andcame from extinct space ! It ’s an iron meteorite , like to ones found in years past by Curiosity ’s precursor Spirit andOpportunity , but is substantially turgid than any of the ones the MER scouter came across … in fact , at 2 meters ( 6.5 foot ) astray this may very well be the biggest meteorite ever break on Mars !
The picture above was made by combine high - closure rotary images ( outlined in ashen ) acquired with the Remote Micro - Imager ( RMI ) of Curiosity’sChemCaminstrument with color and context from the rover’sMastcam . The images were taken on foreign mission Sol 640 ( May 25 , 2014 ) and have been adapt to sham more Earth - like clarification .
nickname “ Lebanon , ” the large meteorite has a smaller fragment lying alongside it , named “ Lebanon B. ”
While iron meteorites are fairly rough-cut on Earth , on Mars they are by far the most common types of meteorite that have been distinguish — if just for the absolute fact that they are highly resistant to erosion .
bump more news show and mental image from the MSL mission on the JPL site here .
Image credit : NASA / JPL - Caltech / LANL / CNES / IRAP / LPGNantes / CNRS / IAS / MSSS
Source : NASA
This article by Jason Majororiginally appear at Universe Today .
curiosity roverMarsMars roverSpace
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