Artificial intelligence has helped identify the exact place of origin of the oldest Martian meteorite, in a discovery that researchers say provides clues to the planet’s early history.
The meteorite, commonly known as “Black Beauty” and officially named Northwest Africa 7034, contains the oldest known Martian igneous material, which is approximately 4.5 billion years old. It was found in the Sahara Desert in 2011.
Researchers have now identified its origin in a crater in the province of Terra Cimmeria-Sirenum in the southern hemisphere of Mars.
Dr. Anthony Lagain of Curtin University, the lead author of the study, said Black Beauty was ejected into Earth by an asteroid impact on the surface of Mars about five to 10 million years ago. .
The crater of origin of the meteorite on Mars has been named Karratha, in honor of the mining city of Western Australia, in accordance with the naming conventions established by the International Astronomical Union which stipulate that small craters must carry the name of the cities on Earth with a population of less than 100,000.
“Because Black Beauty contains the oldest mineral we’ve been able to date from Mars, I thought a city in Western Australia would be a good idea,” Lagain said.
Karratha crater on Mars. Photography: Curtin University
“I decided to call it Karratha because Karratha is very close to the Pilbara region, where the oldest rocks on Earth are.”
To identify the most likely site of origin of the meteorite, the researchers used an automatic learning algorithm to analyze the size and distribution of the 94 m impact craters on the surface of Mars. The AI evaluated tens of thousands of images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter context camera.
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From 19 candidate craters, the team reduced the site of origin to one that had characteristics that matched the properties of the meteorite.
Lagain said locating the origins of Black Beauty was motivated by a desire to understand the early geological history of Mars.
The Mars meteorite ‘Black Beauty’. Photography: Carl Agee / UNM
“Some meteorite minerals are 4.5 billion years old, so it’s almost the age of the same planet.”
“When you analyze the surface [around the Karratha crater] you realize that the composition of this region … is very close to what we find on Earth for the continents. It could indicate that this region could be the relic of very old continents on Mars. “
“We know very little about the early evolution of the planets, including Earth,” Lagain said. “On Earth we have plate tectonics, we have a lot of erosion, which makes it very difficult to find very old rocks.”
Black Beauty is a gap, formed by multiple types of rocks cemented together, the only example of this type on Earth. It was initially thought to be about 2.1 billion years old.
The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.