We’ve been invaded by Martians — well, as least by Martian rocks.
A meteorite shower last July sent some 15 pounds of rocks to the ground in Morocco, where they were found in December. Scientists, having examined their makeup, confirmed that they came from Mars.
"It's Christmas in January," said former NASA sciences chief Alan Stern, director of the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida, according to Sky News. "It's nice to have Mars sending samples to Earth, particularly when our pockets are too empty to go get them ourselves."
Neither NASA nor Russian space junkets have returned any samples from the Red Planet, meaning the only samples scientists have been able to examine have come from past meteor showers.
The rocks from this find are much more pure than those from previous discoveries, which were contaminated by their environments. Most Martian rocks found on Earth have been here at least for hundreds of years and have turned up in the desert or Antarctica.
