Meteorite from Mars, how is it possible?

Question

Several years ago, scientists said they had discovered a Meteorite that came from Mars. I don't debate that the rock may have the same composition as a Martian rock, but what kind of force of nature could launch a piece of Martian rock off the planet with enough force to reach escape velocity, without destroying it, and still be enough intact to survive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and survive an impact with the ground? Just doesn't seem possible to me. Can someone please explain this process in detail for me?

Answer 1

First about Mars's escape velocity: it's much lower than for Earth --

MARS - 7,948 mph

EARTH - 17,895 mph

That means that any object leaving the martian surface needs to slightly exceed 7,948 mph to escape the planet. Such a velocity is easily obtained from the tremendous surface blast caused by a very large asteroid impact. This website discusses just such an impact on Mars =>http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.a...

Most meteors burn up in our atmosphere, but if they're large enough they can and frequently do make it all the way to the surface. Many of the objects blasted off the martian surface by an asteroid impact would certainly be large enough to survive re-entry through Earth's atmosphere.

One of the most convincing facts about the several martian meteorites found is that many of them contain infinitesimal pockets of martian atmosphere. We've remotely "sniffed" enough of that to be thoroughly familiar with its composition and the gas pockets in suspected martian meteorites matches dead on.

Answer 2

Apparently there any many meteorites thought to originate from Mars.  Read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_meteor...

Answer 3

Mars is smaller than Earth, and hence has a weaker gravitational field,

And impact of a meteorite will throw chunks of rock into the air, and some of it can have escape velocity - it's as simple as that.

You can guarantee that so of the rock was destroyed on impact with the earth - but why should a chunk of rock from Mars be destroyed more easily than one from an asteroid?

And the first piece of evidence that lead to the conclusion that these meteorites are MArtian was not the composition, that was supporting evidence. the first pieve was radioactive dating - the rock was too young to come from an asteroid!

Answer 4

ALH84001...

Rock from Mars (book)

read the book or put that first name in google and u can find an answer...

basically something like and astreoids the size of the moon hit mars sending big chucks of martian debris into the sky... some went so fast the escape the gravity of Mars and then were caught in Earths gravity... then they were so big that they didn't completely burn up in the atmosphere so they end up here on earth... I actually saw ALH84001 when i went t DC a month ago...

Answer 5

There are actually quite a few meteorites that come from Mars, along with a few from the Moon. The process doesn't really have anything to do with volcanoes, as a few previous answers have suggested.  It has to do with impacts.  A meteorite struck mars, which in turn launched martian rock into space and then it came to Earth.  The way to think about this is to imagine putting a rock (or anything, really) on your bed.  Slap the bed right next to the rock, but without touching it, and the rock will jump up off the bed right? That's from the shockwave you created when you slapped the bed.  And that's what probably launched the rock off mars.  Another meteorite struck Mars and created one huge shockwave that launched rock off the planet.

Answer 6

What happened is that a long time ago, Olympus Mons, the giant volcano on Mars, erupted which was probably the biggest eruption in the solar system.  This spewed out a huge amount of debris that went to every corner of the solar system.  The sheer amount of rock that went out was enough for a rock to happen to land on earth.  and then we found it!!!

Answer 7

you gotta understand something about scientists.

many of them are just about as clever as you and I.

so when someone finds a rock on Earth that HAD to be from Mars, it was time to come up with a theory as to how such a thing was possible.  Until that time, most astronomers would have said it wasn't.

its sorta like if everyone believed babies were impossible and some lady got pregnant.

"Wait a second... I have a NEW theory!"

Answer 8

Well apparently it is because they found some meteor fragments in Antarctica that originated from mars. We have moon meteors too.

Answer 9

My guess is a large meteorite slammed into Mars a long time ago and sent debre flying everywhere.That meteorite did not get enough speed and was on the verge of returning to mars when a large debre hit it and sent it flying towards earth and entering earth and we found it billions of years later.of course I'm talking about when the solar system formed.