Mars Crater
Black Beauty, also known as NWA 7034, is one of the most studied Martian meteorites. Fragments of it were first discovered in 2011 in North Africa. However, until now, scientists were clueless about its origins. Now using machine learning, a team of researchers from Australia's Curtin University claim to have determined the exact location (on Mars) where the Black Beauty meteorite was born.
The researchers believe their discovery could play a crucial role in understanding the origins of Mars because the meteorite formed in a region that also contains the oldest rocks on the Red Planet. Mars is thought to have originated about 4.53 billion years ago, and surprisingly, one of the Black Beauty fragments is 4.48 billion years old. Therefore, its place of origin may reveal important details about the early Martian environment, geography, and landscape.
So, where is Black Beauty’s home?
Thermal image of Mars showing the location of the Karratha crater marked in red
Black Beauty has a total weight of 320 kilograms. According to the researchers, to land on Earth, such a meteorite would need an escape velocity of 5 km/s (Mars's escape velocity is about 5 km/s). The original collision that provided Black Beauty with such a large ejection speed would have created a crater with a diameter of three kilometers.
Researchers estimate that there are 90 million craters on Mars, more than 80,000 of which are similar in size (3 kilometers in diameter). However, finding one among so many craters (the birthplace of Black Beauty) is a huge challenge. To solve this seemingly impossible puzzle, Curtin researchers discovered and listed several characteristics.
For example, since all Martian meteorites are less than 20 million years old from their home planet, only young craters that are equal in age or younger are candidates for Black Beauty's homeworld. Most three-kilometer craters do not meet this criterion, so they are automatically excluded. These young craters were identified by the presence of visible light around them using thermal imaging technology.
Dr. Anthony Laagain, lead author and researcher at Catlin University, explaining this further, said, “To know if a crater is fresh/young, one can use thermal infrared to look at a picture of the visible rays surrounding a fresh crater. These rays are due to It was formed by the impact of an impact and tends to disappear from the surface quickly due to erosion and dust. If it is still visible today, this indicates that the crater is very young."
Another feature is that the main crater should be surrounded by a number of secondary craters. . According to the researchers, debris from the high-impact collision that occurred during Black Beauty's ejection would have created multiple small craters. However, even after accounting for different features and using thermal imaging , the scientists were left with many craters.
To determine the exact crater, the scientists further turned to algorithms created using a powerful supercomputer called Pawsey. The algorithm shortlisted 19 Martian craters that could be considered home to Black Beauty. The researchers then compared the crater's properties to those of meteorite fragments on Earth, and soon they found a perfect match.
That's Khalasar, a young Martian crater located in the Terrasimeria-Serenum region of the Red Planet. Karratha is located on an ancient volcanic crater called Khujirt. Interestingly, prior to this study, the Karratha and Khujirt craters did not have any names. Following the suggestion of Dr. Lagan and his team, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named the craters after the Earthly towns of Khujirt (Mongolia) and Karratha (Australia) respectively.
The meaning and origin of Black Beauty
Partial fragments of the Black Beauty meteorite
Black Beauty is a special type of Martian meteorite because it is composed of different types of Martian rock fragments. No other meteorite sample on Earth contains more than one type of Martian rock.Therefore, we will have to wait at least eight years before more samples of Martian rock and soil can be brought to Earth, as the first proposed Mars sample return mission should be completed by 2030.
Until then, Black Beauty is the perfect and only available breccia specimen to understand the complex geology of the Red Planet. "Understanding where these unique samples originated is critical to understanding the geological context in which they formed. If you don't know where these rocks came from, you can't replace the results of microscopic analysis of the rocks in a broader context and gain insights into the Earth's ( A global view of the evolution of Mars," Dr. Ragan said.
