Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 9, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-56139-x
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- JSPS [JP17J01269, 18K13600]
- JSPS KAKENHI [17H01176, 17H01175, 17K18812, 18HH04464, JP17H02990, 19H00726]
- Astrobiology Center of the National Institute of Natural Sciences, NINS [AB301018]
- MEXT KAKENHI [JP17H06457, JP17H06459]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [19H00726, 17H01176, 18K13600, 17K18812] Funding Source: KAKEN
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Throughout the history of the solar system, Mars has experienced continuous asteroidal impacts. These impacts have produced impact-generated Mars ejecta, and a fraction of this debris is delivered to Earth as Martian meteorites. Another fraction of the ejecta is delivered to the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Here, we studied the amount and condition of recent delivery of impact ejecta from Mars to its moons. Using state-of-the-art numerical approaches, we report, for the first time, that materials delivered from Mars to its moons are physically and chemically different from the Martian meteorites, which are all igneous rocks with a limited range of ages. We show that Mars ejecta mixed in the regolith of its moons potentially covers all its geological eras and consists of all types of rocks, from sedimentary to igneous. A Martian moons sample-return mission will bring such materials back to Earth, and the samples will provide a wealth of time-resolved geochemical information about the evolution of Martian surface environments.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available