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Frontiers

Factual: Science & Nature

Programme exploring new ideas in science and meeting the researchers responsible

Programme exploring new ideas in science and meeting the scientists and researchers responsible for them, as well as hearing from their critics

Frontiers: 29/06/2011

29/06/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Frontiers, 29/06/2011

How a meteorite that landed on Earth 100 years ago is helping astronomers explore Mars.

On 28 June 1911 a meteor fell from Mars and landed in the Nakhla region of Egypt. Astronomer Dr Marek Kukula asks why this meteorite could hold clues to life on Mars.

On 28th June 1911 an explosion erupted in the sky over the Nakhla region of Alexandria in Egypt. 

A chunk of rock, about the size of a football, had broken away from the surface of Mars several million years ago. It floated around the Solar System until eventually the Martian rock was pulled into our planet's gravitational field. 

When it fell to Earth a century ago, eyewitnesses saw an explosion high in the atmosphere, as the meteor split into dozens of fragments which hurtled towards them and were buried up to a meter deep in the ground.

Dr Marek Kukula, Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, looks at the legacy of the Nakhla meteorite. These precious rocks are now being used by scientists to ground-truth data sent back from Spirit and Opportunity - the two rovers currently exploring the Martian surface.

Over 100 yrs after it landed, the Nakhla meteorite could hold the key to the ancient history of Mars, answering questions about the presence of water and the possibility of microbial life on the Red Planet. 

Producer: Michelle Martin.

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