![407304main jsc2009e243549](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/407304main_jsc2009e243549.jpg)
Nakhla is a
Martian meteorite
A Martian meteorite is a rock that formed on Mars, was ejected from the planet by an impact event, and traversed interplanetary space before landing on Earth as a meteorite. , 277 meteorites had been classified as Martian, less than half a percen ...
which fell in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
in 1911. It was the first
meteorite reported from Egypt, the first one to suggest signs of
aqueous processes on
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
, and the prototype for
Nakhlite
Nakhlites are a group of Martian meteorites, named after the first one, Nakhla meteorite.
Nakhlites are igneous rocks that are rich in augite and were formed from basaltic magma about 1.3 billion years ago. They contain augite and olivine crysta ...
type of meteorites.
History
The Nakhla meteorite fell to Earth on June 28, 1911, at approximately 09:00, in the Abu Hommos district, Alexandria Governorate,
Khedivate of Egypt
The Khedivate of Egypt ( or , ; ota, خدیویت مصر ') was an autonomous tributary state of the Ottoman Empire, established and ruled by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty following the defeat and expulsion of Napoleon Bonaparte's forces which br ...
(now
Abu Hummus
Abu Hummus, also Abu Humus, Abu Hommos, Abu Homos, Abou Homs ( ar, أبو حمص) is a town in Beheira Governorate, Egypt, an administrative center of ''markaz'' Abu Hummus.
The old name of the town is Shubra Bar () which Ramzi derives from ''Ch ...
,
Beheira Governorate
Beheira Governorate ( ar, محافظة البحيرة ', , "the governorate of the Lake") is a coastal governorate in Egypt. Located in the northern part of the country in the Nile Delta, its capital is Damanhur.
Overview
Beheira Governorate ...
), in the area of the village of El Nakhla El Bahariya. The stones were collected near hamlets of Ezbet Abdalla Zeid, Ezbet Abdel Malek, Ezbet el Askar, and Ezbet Saber Mahdi.
["the meteoric stones of El Nakhla El Baharia (Egypt)"]
by G.T.Prior, Keeper of Minerals in the British Museum; read November 14, 1911, ''Mineralogical Magazine
The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland began in 1876. Its main purpose is to disseminate scientific knowledge of the Mineral Sciences (mineralogy) as it may be applied to the fields of crystallography, geochemistry, petrology, e ...
,'' 1912, vol. 16, pp. 274–281["The Nakhla Meteorite"](_blank)
– From NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States.
Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...
Many people witnessed the meteorite approaching from the northwest, inclination about °, along with the track marked with a column of white smoke. Several explosions were heard before it fell to
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
in an area of in diameter, and about forty pieces were recovered;
the fragments were buried in the ground up to a meter deep.
From an estimated original weight of , recovered fragments ranged in weight from to .
Two fragments, found near Ezbet Abdel Malek, were presented by the Egyptian Government to the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
.[
]
Nakhla dog
One fragment of the meteorite was said to have landed on a dog, as observed by a farmer named Mohammed Ali Effendi Hakim in the village of Denshal supposedly vaporizing the animal instantly. Since no remains of the dog were recovered and there was no other eyewitness to the dog's demise, this story remains apocryphal. However, the story of the Nakhla dog has become something of a legend among astronomers.[meteoritestudies.com]
The Nakhla Dog
Classification
It is the prototypical example of the Nakhlite
Nakhlites are a group of Martian meteorites, named after the first one, Nakhla meteorite.
Nakhlites are igneous rocks that are rich in augite and were formed from basaltic magma about 1.3 billion years ago. They contain augite and olivine crysta ...
type meteorite of the ''SNC Group'' of Mars meteorite
A Martian meteorite is a rock that formed on Mars, was ejected from the planet by an impact event, and traversed interplanetary space before landing on Earth as a meteorite. , 277 meteorites had been classified as Martian, less than half a percen ...
s. The meteorite was formed about 1.3 billion years ago at a volcano on Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
.
A number of meteorites thought to have originated from Mars have been catalogued from around the world, including the Nakhlites. These are considered to have been ejected
Ejection or Eject may refer to:
* Ejection (sports), the act of officially removing someone from a game
* Eject (''Transformers''), a fictional character from ''The Transformers'' television series
* "Eject" (song), 1993 rap rock single by Sense ...
by the impact of another large body colliding with the Martian surface. They then travelled through the Solar System
The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...
for an unknown period before penetrating the Earth's atmosphere
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing fo ...
.
Signs of water
Nakhla is the first Martian meteorite to show signs of aqueous processes on Mars. The rock contains carbonates and hydrous minerals, formed by chemical reactions in water. Also, the rock was exposed to water after it formed, which caused secondary accumulations of minerals. The carbonates contain more 13C than rocks formed on Earth, indicating Martian origin.[Glavin, Daniel P]
Amino acids in the Martian meteorite Naklah
Retrieved November 13, 2010.
Signs of life
In March 1999, after receiving part of the meteorite from the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in 1998, a team from NASA's Johnson Space Center examined the Nakhla meteorite using an optical microscope
The optical microscope, also referred to as a light microscope, is a type of microscope that commonly uses visible light and a system of lenses to generate magnified images of small objects. Optical microscopes are the oldest design of microsc ...
and a powerful scanning electron microscope (SEM), revealing possibly biomorphic forms of a limited size range, among other features. London's Natural History Museum
A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...
, which holds several intact fragments of the meteorite, allowed NASA researchers to break one open in 2006, providing fresh samples, relatively free from Earth-sourced contamination. These scientists found an abundance of complex carbonaceous material occupying dendritic
Dendrite derives from the Greek word "dendron" meaning ( "tree-like"), and may refer to:
Biology
*Dendrite, a branched projection of a neuron
*Dendrite (non-neuronal), branching projections of certain skin cells and immune cells
Physical
* Dendr ...
pores and channels in the rock, resembling the effects of bacteria observed in rocks on Earth.[
A debate took place at the 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March 2006 in Houston, Texas over the postulate that carbon-rich content within the pores of the rocks consisted of the remains of living matter. Because ]carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon mak ...
is the fourth most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen), the presence of shapes resembling living organisms was considered insufficient by most attendees to prove that bacteria once lived on Mars. A team concluded in 2014 that although the abiotic scenario is considered to be the most reasonable explanation for the shapes in this meteorite, it is evident that the Martian subsurface contains niche environments where life could develop.
Amino acids within the meteorite
In 1999, various amino acid
Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha a ...
s were isolated from the meteorite fragment at Johnson Space Center. Among them were aspartic acid, glutamic acid, glycine
Glycine (symbol Gly or G; ) is an amino acid that has a single hydrogen atom as its side chain. It is the simplest stable amino acid ( carbamic acid is unstable), with the chemical formula NH2‐ CH2‐ COOH. Glycine is one of the proteinog ...
, alanine
Alanine (symbol Ala or A), or α-alanine, is an α-amino acid that is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. It contains an amine group and a carboxylic acid group, both attached to the central carbon atom which also carries a methyl group side ...
, and γ-aminobutyric acid. However, it is not clear whether they were initially from the meteorite or the product of terrestrial contamination.
See also
* Allan Hills 84001
Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001) is a fragment of a Martian meteorite that was found in the Allan Hills in Antarctica on December 27, 1984, by a team of American meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project. Like other members of the shergottite–nakh ...
, Martian meteorite
* Astrobiology
* Biosignature
* Glossary of meteoritics
This is a glossary of terms used in meteoritics, the science of meteorites.
#
* 2 Pallas – an asteroid from the asteroid belt and one of the likely parent bodies of the CR meteorites.
* 4 Vesta – second-largest asteroid in the asteroid b ...
* Life on Mars
The possibility of life on Mars is a subject of interest in astrobiology due to the planet's proximity and similarities to Earth. To date, no proof of past or present life has been found on Mars. Cumulative evidence suggests that during the ...
* List of meteorites on Mars
This is an alphabetical list of named rocks (and meteorites) found on Mars, by mission. This list is a sampling of rocks viewed, and is not an exhaustive listing. A more complete listing may be found on the various NASA mission web sites. This lis ...
* Northwest Africa 7034
* Panspermia
Panspermia () is the hypothesis, first proposed in the 5th century BCE by the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and planetoids, as well as by spacec ...
* Shergotty meteorite
The Shergotty meteorite (Named after Sherghati) is the first example of the shergottite Martian meteorite family. It was a meteorite which fell to Earth at Sherghati, in the Gaya district, Bihar, India on 25 August 1865, and was retrieved by wit ...
* Yamato 000593
Yamato 000593 (or Y000593) is the second largest meteorite from Mars found on Earth. Studies suggest the Martian meteorite was formed about 1.3 billion years ago from a lava flow on Mars. An impact occurred on Mars about 11 million years ago and ...
, Martian meteorite
References
* (Nakhla meteorite part of the plot)
External links
NASA's JPL homepage on the Nakhla meteorite
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nakhla Meteorite
Meteorites found in Egypt
Martian meteorites
1911 in Egypt
1911 in science
1911 in the environment
Beheira Governorate
Meteorites by name
1910s in Egypt