Egg-Shaped Iron-Nickel Meteorite

NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered an egg-shaped meteorite on Mars in October 2016. By scanning it with its laser-firing spectrometer, the rover determined that it was an iron-nickel meteorite that had fallen from the Red Planet’s sky. This dark grey, golf-ball-sized item is a far cry from the regular red-orange rocks that are typically seen on the planet.

The rover’s onboard rock-zapping laser was used to investigate the rock’s chemical composition to determine its origin. Using this method, it was determined that the meteorite fell from the sky of Mars. A meteorite recovered by the rover’s research team has been christened “Egg Rock.”