Red Planet’s interior may not churn much
Composition of 2.4-billion-year-old Martian meteorite matches that of younger ones
An enduring source of magma on Mars fueled volcanic eruptions for billions of years, clues inside a rock flung from the Red Planet reveal.
The newfound rock belongs to a batch of meteorites called shergottites that originated from the same Martian volcanic system, researchers report February 1 in Science Advances. But the new rock is considerably older than its counterparts. While previously discovered shergottites solidified from Martian magma between 427 million and 574 million years ago, the new rock formed around 2.4 billion years ago, chemical analyses show.