Sure, it’s not a duck-shaped rock, but Tissint is just one of five known Mars meteorites that have crash landed right here on Earth. This particular specimen was found in Morocco over 11-years ago and believed to have formed hundreds of million of years ago before being launched into space by a vicious event.
Tissint was discovered to have a diversity of organic compounds, including carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and magnesium. These organic compounds are typically associated with life, although previous Martian meteorite research demonstrated that they can also be created by non-biological processes. Future samples returned from Mars should provide even more information about the formation, stability and dynamics of organic compounds in Martian environments.
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Mars and Earth share many aspects of their evolution. And while life arose and thrived on our home planet, the question of whether it ever existed on Mars is a very hot research topic that requires deeper knowledge of our neighboring planet’s water, organic molecules, and reactive surfaces,” said Schmitt-Kopplin, lead author of the study.
