The oldest meteorite from Mars is called Black Beauty. Western Australian astrogeologists, on the other hand, followed the traces of a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite from Mars, found in the Sahara Desert in 2011, and succeeded in identifying its origin.
THE ORIGIN OF BLACK BEAUTY ON MARS
According to the news of The Guardian, in an article published in Nature Communications, scientists detailed how the Black Beauty, weighing 320 grams, found in the Sahara Desert in North Africa in 2011, came from Mars.
DEVELOPED AI, USED ALGORITHM… ALL HELPED DISCOVERY
The discovery was made possible after a team of scientists at Curtin developed an algorithm to analyze the size and distribution of 94-metre impact craters on the Martian surface. The artificial intelligence evaluated tens of thousands of images taken by the camera of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
In this way, the team narrowed down the options and identified 19 candidate craters. Later that number was reduced to a single crater. Researchers determined that the meteorite came from the Terra Cimmeria-Sirenum region of Mars.
THEY FILED THE RULE AND CHOOSE THE NAME KARRATHA
The crater on Mars where Black Beauty came from was named after the city of Karratha in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, in accordance with the naming conventions set by the International Astronomical Union, which stipulate that small craters be named after cities with a population of less than 100,000.
WHY KARRATHA?
Dr. Anthony Lagain from Curtin University, the lead author of the study, said that he thought it would be a good idea to choose a city from Western Australia. .
The discovery, made by researchers at Curtin University, will provide insight into the evolution of planets in the solar system that formed 4.57 billion years ago.