NWA 8159 Martian Meteorite Martian (augite basalt) Morocco...

NWA 8159 Martian Meteorite Martian (augite basalt) Morocco Found: 2013 {p}{a id="video1" name="video1"}{/a}{div class="aspect-ratio wide-screen mar10"}{iframe id="player" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="1" title="YouTube video player" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4Z8E0wNfuos?wmode=transparent&html5=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" name="video1"}{/iframe}{br}{br}{/div}{/p} {p}{a id="video1" name="video1"}{/a}{div class="aspect-ratio wide-screen mar10"}{iframe id="player" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="1" title="YouTube video player" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cpZHJopW0Js?wmode=transparent&html5=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" name="video1"}{/iframe}{br}{br}{/div}{/p} We know that Northwest Africa (NWA) 8159 and the 234 other listed Martian meteorites journeyed here from Mars because of the robot Viking spacecraft that landed on the Red Planet in 1976. Six years after those landings, Drs. Johnson and Bogard were studying an unusual meteorite with a most unusual name - Elephant Moraine 79001, which had been found in Antarctica in 1979. Astonishingly, the two scientists discovered that tiny amounts of gas trapped within 79001 were a close match to the thin atmosphere of Mars, as recorded by the Viking landers. This experiment has been confirmed by looking at gaseous inclusions from several other Martian meteorites, clearly indicating their origin point. What a fiery and furious life NWA 8159 and its "cousins" have led! Blasted off the surface of their home planet by other meteorite impacts (the impactors likely being large asteroid fragments), they wandered in space until encountering our planet. They were super-heated in our atmosphere - as meteors or shooting stars - before falling to Earth and later being discovered, then identified and classified. At the present time, there are 61,316 different meteorites listed in the Meteoritical Bulletin. That number represents the total of all meteorites officially recognized by academia in the history of the science of meteoritics. Of these, a mere 235 are Martian meteorites, mak