Largest Piece Of Mars On Earth now On Display at The Maine Mineral & Gem Museum

BETHEL, Maine, Sept. 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- When the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum opens to the public today, September 1st, it will have a new addition: the largest single Mars rock on Earth. The specimen weighs 32 pounds. With less than 560 pounds known to exist, Mars is among the most exotic substances on our planet. It was an asteroid impact on the Martian surface that ejected surface material into an Earth-crossing orbit.

Scientists believed similarly exotic rocks originated from Mars as a result of their extraordinary chemical and isotopic markers. The proof of Martian origin, however, arrived in 1995 when similar samples with tiny bubbles were discovered to contain small volumes of gas — which turned out to be a perfect match with the signature of the Martian atmosphere as determined by NASA's Viking probes. 

This specimen was acquired by Darryl Pitt, a Museum consultant who also obtained for the Museum the largest Moon Rock on Earth. For confirmation of his belief that the specimen was Martian, Pitt sent a small sample to Dr. Carl Agee — the director of the Institute of Meteoritics and one of the world's most renowned classification experts of Martian meteorites. Following a peer review of Dr. Agee's analysis and confirmation this was indeed a massive piece of the planet Mars, scientists named the meteorite "Taoudenni 002" as this was the second meteorite to be recovered from near Taoudenni, Mali — a desert salt-mining center 400 miles north of Timbuktu.

The meteorite is primarily comprised of pyroxene, olivine and maskekynite — an impact glass with bubbles known to contain Martian atmosphere.

Pictured at the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum last night at a celebratory unveiling for 100 guests are NASA scientist Dr. R. Aileen Yingst and NASA engineer Florence Tan with Taoudenni 002. Dr. Yingst, who addressed the crowd, is a Senior Scientist for the Planetary Science Institute, is a Co-Investigator on the SHERLOC instrument on the Martian rover Perseverance, and the Deputy Principal Investigator for the Hand Lens Imager on the Martian rover Curiosity.  Florence Tan is the Chair of the Small Spacecraft Coordination Group at NASA Headquarters. She worked at Goddard Space Flight Center and has had designing and operational roles in the spectrometers sent to Mars, Saturn, and the Moon. 

For further information or photos, please contact Jo Sorrell / jsorrell@mainemineralmuseum.org or 207-824-3036 x115.

The Maine Mineral & Gem Museum is located at 99 Main Street in Bethel, Maine and is open every day except Tuesdays. Comprising 15,000 square feet and featuring 19 interactive exhibits and a laboratory, the MMGM celebrates Maine's mining legacy in addition to an internationally renowned meteorite collection with more of the Moon than every natural history museum in the world — combined.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/largest-piece-of-mars-on-earth-now-on-display-at-the-maine-mineral--gem-museum-301367726.html

SOURCE Maine Mineral & Gem Museum