* Astronomy

Rare meteorites reveal Mars collision caused water flow

Rare fragments of Martian meteorites have been investigated at the University of Leicester revealing one of the ways water flowed near the surface of Mars.
Scientists at the University's renowned Space Research Centre, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, examined five meteorite samples - including the very first nakhlite, found a century ago.
Nakhlites are a form of meteorite known to have originated on Mars. They are named after the village of El-Nakhla in Egypt where the first one was found in 1911.
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On this day in 1996, NASA announced that evidence of microfossils may be present in Meteorite Allen Hills 84001, a 4.5 billion year old meteorite thought to originate from Mars.

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NASA team cites new evidence that meteorites from Mars contain ancient fossils

NASA's Mars Meteorite Research Team reopened a 14-year-old controversy on extraterrestrial life last week, reaffirming and offering support for its widely challenged assertion that a 4-billion-year-old meteorite that landed thousands of years ago on Antarctica shows evidence of microscopic life on Mars.
In addition to presenting research that they said disproved some of their critics, the scientists reported that additional Martian meteorites appear to house distinct and identifiable microbial fossils that point even more strongly to the existence of life.
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A Martian meteorite that has played a pivotal role in our understanding of the Solar System has been found to be half a billion years younger than previously thought, say US researchers. Despite the age adjustment, the meteorite, called ALH84001, is still the oldest Martian rock found on Earth.
Much of our information about the geology of Mars comes from debris that was thrown into space by asteroid strikes on the red planet. Some of this material is still falling to Earth as meteorites - ALH84001 was found in Allan Hills, Antarctica in 1984.
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