Meteorite found in the Sahara shows what Mars was like 4.1 billion years ago

A rose-colored meteorite found in the Sahara Desert is giving scientists a rare look at Mars as it was more than four billion years ago. Named Teghaza 001, the rock was discovered in 2022 by meteorite hunters near the Teghaza salt plain in Mali and is eight fragments totaling about 798 grams. Zircon-crystal dating, led by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Yang Liu and published October 29 in the journal Science, puts its age at at least 4.1 billion years, so it formed within Mars's first 400 million years. Its chemistry shows it interacted with water in the ancient Martian crust, evidence water altered the crust that early, from a region of Mars never sampled before. Source: CNN, November 6, 2026.

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