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Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies

New video shows inner view of Black Beauty Martian meteorite!

This video was made from CT scans of a slice (45 mm x 55 mm x 4 mm) of the NWA 7034 (AKA “Black Beauty”) Martian meteorite from the ASU Center for Meteorite Studies collection.

This meteorite is a polymict breccia containing a diverse assemblage of igneous and “sedimentary” materials. It was most likely produced by impact, but also involved volcanic and low-temperature alteration processes.

The bulk chemical composition of this meteorite closely matches that of the Martian crust as measured by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers and Mars Odyssey Orbiter. It also contains the most amount of water (approximately ~0.6 wt%) of any of the known Martian meteorites.

The CT imaging of this meteorite slice was performed at the American Museum of Natural History, New York.