Meteorite | NWA 7397 - Mars | Shergottite | 39.96g

Product detailed description

Mars. A red planet that captures the imagination of many scientists, artists and ordinary people. It will be a long time before human feet rest on it. But you can hold a piece of it in your hand right now, explore it at will and let your imagination run wild. How is this possible?

About 2 million years ago, on the surface of Mars, in a region rich in dark, basaltic plains, a massive event occurred when Mars shook under the force of an immense impact. A giant asteroid collided with the planet with such force that it hurled this basalt rock into space at speeds that overcame Mars' gravitational pull, sending chunks of the rock on a long, fateful journey through the solar system.

In 2012, in a remote part of Morocco, the eyes of a Bedouin shepherd headed downhill when he spotted something unusual on the sandy surface. It was a small stone, carrying with it a story millions of years old, a secret waiting to be revealed. The shepherd was attracted by its unusual texture and strange appearance. It was a meteorite.
Before long, the meteorite came into the hands of two scientists - Dr. A. Irving and S. Kuehner of the University of Washington, who identified the meteorite as Shergottite - a group of meteorites named after the Shergotty meteorite that was found in 1865 in Sherghati, India.

This Shergottit from Morocco is not only rare but also beautiful. You can observe both the blackened crust that was created when it passed through our atmosphere and the interior containing beautifully crafted pyroxene crystals surrounded by small crystals of olivine and chromite. The interesting texture is probably due to the rapid cooling of the rock from magmatic temperatures. But that wasn't all - grains of the mineral feldspar were transformed into glass, a testament to the intense impact pressure the rock experienced when it was ejected from the Martian surface by an extremely energetic impact.

Weighing nearly 40g, this piece of Mars is one of the largest fragments of this meteorite still available for purchase. Most are already part of rare collections and their price is still rising.