Iron Meteorite on Mars

Opportunity  found an iron meteorite on Mars, the first meteorite of any type ever identified on another planet.
IDL TIFF file
January 19, 2005
CreditNASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
Language
  • english

Opportunity found an iron meteorite on Mars, the first meteorite of any type ever identified on another planet. The pitted, basketball-size object is mostly made of iron and nickel. Readings from spectrometers on the rover determined that composition. Opportunity used its panoramic camera to take the images used in this approximately true-color composite on the rover's 339th martian day, or sol (Jan. 6, 2005). This composite combines images taken through the panoramic camera's 600-nanometer (red), 530-nanometer (green), and 480-nanometer (blue) filters.