Opportunity finds a meteorite on mars

Hi guys, found this interesting article in universe today. So I thought I would post it here.

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The Opportunity rover has come across an odd-shaped, large, dark rock, about 0.6 meters (2 feet) across on the surface of Mars, which may be a meteorite. The rover team spotted the rock called "Block Island," on July 18, 2009, in the opposite direction from which it was driving. The team then had the rover do a hard right (not really, but you know what I mean) and backtrack some 250 meters (820 feet) to study it closer. Oppy has been studying the rock with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to get composition measurements and to confirm if indeed it is a meteorite.

The evidence,

Block Island really does have a meteorite-like look to it. Stu suggested on his blog that it looks like several meteorites found on Earth, such as one of the Derrick Peak meteorites found in Antarctica, shown below. The Derrick Peak meteorites are iron meteorites, and about 27 were found in one location in Antarctica. Researchers believe they all came from one meteor shower.

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Universe today

What if. Just what if it somehow could be determined that it is a meteorite and it originated on Earth? That would mean that Mars and Earth have an exchange program!

www2.jpl.nasa.gov...

I'm confused. If it's a metorite, than why is it just lying on top of the ground as if just placed there.

How do we know it didn't come from an eruption on the planet? I supppose it was ejected from another meteor as a fragment, but it still bothers me that it just doesn't seem right.

Where do they keep the pictures that are the same quality as the color picture?

All I can find are the truncated jpg's.

Wow @ the quality of the pic of the mars meteor. Where are these pictures kept?

Originally posted by Phage
What if. Just what if it somehow could be determined that it is a meteorite and it originated on Earth? That would mean that Mars and Earth have an exchange program!

www2.jpl.nasa.gov...

Funny, that's the same thing that came to my mind while I was reading the article.
If a meteorite is a rock that has fallen to Earth from space than what do you call a rock that falls to Mars from space?

Originally posted by aleon1018
I'm confused. If it's a metorite, than why is it just lying on top of the ground as if just placed there.

How do we know it didn't come from an eruption on the planet? I supppose it was ejected from another meteor as a fragment, but it still bothers me that it just doesn't seem right.

This does seem out of place but then I remember a documentary about several meteorites that were found in Canada sitting on top of the ice of a frozen lake. These rocks had recently fallen to Earth and a lot of people were out looking for them. I don't think anybody expected to find them on the ice like that, assuming the rocks would smash or melt through and sink to the bottom of the lake.

Block Island really does have a meteorite-like look to it. Stu suggested on his blog that it looks like several meteorites found on Earth, such as one of the Derrick Peak meteorites found in Antarctica, shown below.

The two pictures show the same object, so how can the lower one be a meteorite found in Antarctica?

Originally posted by Mogget

Block Island really does have a meteorite-like look to it. Stu suggested on his blog that it looks like several meteorites found on Earth, such as one of the Derrick Peak meteorites found in Antarctica, shown below.

The two pictures show the same object, so how can the lower one be a meteorite found in Antarctica?

The lower picture is a 3-D image of the 'Block Island' meteorite that Opportunity took on Mars and the picture above it, also below the related text, is of the Antarctica meteorite.

Mars 'Block Island' meteorite.

Antarctica meteorite.

Mars 'Block Island' meteorite in 3-D.

There are only two photos in your original post. Both of them are of the suspected Martian meteorite.