Key facts
- Category
- Meteoritic material
- Object class
- Martian meteoroid
- Scale fact
- ~60 cmpre-entry diameter
- Composition
- Basaltic Martian rock
Nakhla Meteoroid
~60 cmpre-entry diameter
Visual creditscaleofspace.org / CC BY-NC 4.0
Details
The Nakhla meteoroid was the Martian body whose fragments fell in Egypt in 1911 as the Nakhla meteorite. Studies of nakhlites show that liquid water later altered this rock on Mars, preserving one of the clearest meteoritic records of Martian aqueous history.
Nakhla is an igneous rock that crystallized on Mars and was later altered when liquid water moved through it. An impact eventually ejected the material from Mars; fragments fell in Egypt in 1911. The meteorite can therefore be tested in terrestrial laboratories as both a sample of Martian volcanism and a record of later water-rock interaction.
Links
- Wikipedia
- Nakhla Meteoroid on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Nakhla Meteoroid on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, Nakhla Meteoroid falls between Ordinary Chondrite and Hoba Meteoroid. The band uses nearby Meteoritic material records.
Shared physical scale
42.1m
Sources
References for Nakhla Meteoroid
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- Nakhla Meteoroid — Wikipedia
- Visual: scaleofspace.org / CC BY-NC 4.0
Continue with nearby objects or open the full scale.
About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.