[meteorite-list] First Mars ID

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:55:45 2004
Message-ID: <200201111841.KAA00727_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

>Papanastassiou, D. A. and Wasserburg, G. J. "Evidence for the Late Formation and Young Metamorphism in the Achondrite Nakhla." Geophys. Res. Let. 1, 23-26, 1974.

It turns out that Dimitri Papanastassiou's office is in the building next to mine, so I went
over this morning to talk to him about his 1974 article. His analysis was based on
two samples of Nakhla that he had, 0.5 grams apiece. Back then, they were narrowing
down the possibilities of the parent body for the SNCs. They had pretty much ruled out
asteroids and the Moon. Though his article did not specifically mention Mars as
a candidate, he did say in the article that the parent body for Nakhla was
a planetary body in the solar system close to terrestrial composition.

Ron Baalke
Received on Fri 11 Jan 2002 01:41:51 PM PST