Martian mystery
Scientists disagree on what ALH84001 meteorite reveals about the Red Planet
ALH 84001 — This set of letters and numbers refer to a very-unusual meteorite found in Antarctica . Meteorites are usually named after the post office that is closest to where they were discovered . For example , the Peekskill meteorite is named after the Peekskill , N . Y ., post office , and the Odessa meteorite is named after the Odessa , Texas , post office . Yet since there are not a lot of post offices throughout Antarctica , ALH 84001 is first named for the region it was found in Antarctica : Allan Hills or the ALH letters . The numbers represent the year it was found – 1984 – and then assigned a number for that year ’ s finds at Allan Hills – 001 . ALH 84001 was found December 27 , 1984 , by a group of U . S . meteorite hunters . The meteorite weighed about 4.3 pounds . It is theorized that the ALH 84001 meteorite was blasted off of Mars about 17 million years ago , and fell on Antarctica some 13,000 years ago , awaiting its 1984 discovery . It is not the unusual name or even the location that makes this meteorite so rare . First , it was identified as one of the rare class of Shergottite –
COURTESY OF NASA / JSC / Stanford University
This archive image from NASA shows the ALH84001 meteorite , which was discovered in Antarctica on Dec . 27 , 1984 . The meteorite , which measures about 3.5 inches across , is housed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston .
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