Meteor May Be From Martian Moon Phobos

An anonymous reader writes "Russian and NASA scientists published in the March journal of Solar System Research, the proposition that a 1980 Yemenite meteorite originated from the martian moon, Phobos. It would be the first moon rock from another planet. New Scientist has a short description and Astrobiology Magazine has the picture. Unique among the 20,000 meteorites collected, this is similar to heat-shocked charcoal and shows several mineral phases not found terrestrially."

Klendathu!

[dmayle]

It's off to Klendathu! The bugs are hurling meteorites!

Eh?

[NanoGator]

"he proposition that a 1980 Yemenite meteorite originated from the martian moon, Phobos. It would be the first moon rock from another planet."

1.) Isn't Phobos a moon, not a planet?

2.) Aren't pretty much all meteorites extra-terrestrial in nature?

I don't mean to be nitpicky about the phrase itself, but it doesn't seem like a big deal to call it that. Maybe if it had said "First meteorite to hit our planet from another planet in our own solar system that we can positively identify..." I'd be more enthu

Re:Eh?

[ColaMan]

Sounds like what he meant to say was that it would be the first rock from another planet's moon.

Re:Eh?

[AMystery]

I think the phrase it meant to be parsed as, the first rock from the moon of another planet, i.e., a moon rock. That is interesting in that if true, it would give us detailed compositional information about the material of either Phobos or Demos, hmm, that isn't spelled correctly...oh well, the other moon, you know, where the red guys landed in Doom and you had to go shoot them repeatedly with the automatic shotgun (you did use the cheats, didn't you?) From reading the article (gasp) it is a very very interesting rock, that shows three different rocks in it, the material of the parent body and then material from two different impacts, all amalgomated into one meteor that then visited our fair planet.

For those who didn't read the article, it most likely came from an object that roamed through the solar system collecting other objects (a celestial garbage truck). This is the preferred origin for both the moons of Mars, so while it might not have come from one of the moons and instead be from an object like Ceres, in any case it is interesting.

Re:Eh?

[dotgain]

I can't remember whether it's Phobos or Deimos that's only some 15km diameter. Not only is the gravity so weak that a man could leap himself into orbit, but surely due the the size of it, it won't be able to toss pebbles outward forever, there just isn't that much of it left.

Not that diameter is the right word, it's shaped like a pie crust. Then again, I might be talking about the wrong moon.

Sample return?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the urgency of a landing and sample return when Mars is contributing 20 rocks to Antarctica every year? There is even some evidence that these meteorite fragments have interiors where the temperature never rose about 100 F.

Re:Sample return?

[burris]

We think those meteorites came from Mars but we are not certian. A sample return mission would provide certainty and may authenticate meteorites found on Earth. Further, the returned samples could be selected for how interesting the appear, rather than the random selection that falls on Earth.

In other news...

[ColdZero]

In other news, a gateway to hell has been discovered on Phobos. Space marines have been sent to investigate. A game based on this discovery is purportedly in the works...

Find the rocks before they get contaminated

[Birger Johansson]

It would be very interesting to find a pristine rock from either Phobos or the Martian surface before the object gets contaminated by the terrestrial environment -meaning before they fall on Earth !
Phobos -which is believed to have started off as an asteroid- might have the molecular building blocks for life, but the researchers want to be sure they are not just seeing earthly contaminants. And a rock from Mars' surface might have fossil bacteria, but such stuctures might also have been created after arriv