It turns out that previous estimates of the raid that hurled Martian rock fragments into space had been overestimated. This has been reported by the California Institute of Technology.
Scientists know of 266 meteorites that fell to Earth formed on Mars. They were extracted from it by high-energy processes during the fall of other meteorites. For a long time it was believed that this happens under the enormous pressures applied to the material.
Hu Jinping and colleagues, experiment Find out under what conditions the stones were thrown into space. One of the main components of Martian rocks is the mineral plagioclase. Under high pressure, such as a strong impact, plagioclase is converted to maskite, a glassy material. Thus, analysis of the presence of masklinite in the rock allows measurement of the pressure under test.
In the experiments, the authors used a special “gun” to fire plagioclase stones, which can launch “bullets” at a speed greater than Mach 5. Previous experiments have shown that plagioclase transforms into maskite at an impact pressure of 30 gigapascals (GPa), which is 300,000 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level, or 1,000 times the pressure a diver comes into contact with while diving to a depth of 3 km. .
We have now found that the transition actually occurs at a pressure of about 20 GPa. These data are consistent with the pressure estimate obtained from the analysis of other meteorite minerals.
The authors hope that their work will allow us to accurately determine the conditions that created the meteorite, thereby identifying the corresponding impact crater on Mars.
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