Scientists Trace Origin Of Mars Meteorites On Earth To 'Tooting Crater'

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Tooting Crater was named after a London suburb.

Let's deal with this name issue right away. "Tooting Crater" on Mars is a large and fairly young impact site. Mars craters expert Peter Mouginis-Mark identified the landmark and named it Tooting after his birthplace in the London suburb. It's OK to giggle about it, especially when thinking about the crater ejecting material out into space that ended up reaching Earth.

Planetary scientist Anthony Lagain of Australia's Curtin University led a study published in Nature Communications this week that traced the origin of some Martian meteorites found on Earth.

According to Curtin, 166 Martian rocks are known to have landed on our planet over the past 20 million years, but it's been tough to trace their precise origin points on Mars. It takes a lot of energy to blast a bit of Mars out into space, so the researchers looked at craters that might be responsible.

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