Scientists have identified a never-before-seen type of meteorite from Mars that has 10 times more water and far more oxygen in it than any previous Martian sample.
The meteorite was found in the Sahara Desert in 2011 and has the official name of Northwest Africa 7034. It is a small basaltic rock — nicknamed “Black Beauty” – which means it formed from rapidly cooling lava. The meteorite is about 2.1 billion years old, from a period known as the Martian Amazonian epoch, and provides scientists with their first hands-on glimpse of this era.
Around 110 Martian meteorites have been found on Earth. Most were probably blown off the Red Planet during a large asteroid impact and subsequently crashed on our own world. The majority are relatively young, though the famous Allan Hills 84001, which some scientists believe contains traces of ancient Martian bacteria, is more than 4 billion years old.