By Tanya Lewis
A recently found Martian meteorite contains substantially more water than any previously found, and chemically the rock appears to be in a class by itself.
The meteorite, known as Northwest Africa 7034, formed about 2.1 billion years ago during Mars’ Amazonian epoch and closely matches the chemical composition of parts of the planet’s surface, scientists report online January 3 in Science.
“This new meteorite is more like Martian crust than any previous meteorite,” says lead author Carl Agee, a planetary scientist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.