ALH84001

ALH84001, meteorite determined to have come from Mars and the subject of a contentious scientific claim that it contains the remains of ancient life indigenous to the planet. Recovered from the Allan Hills ice field of Antarctica in 1984, the 1.9-kg (4.2-pound) igneous rock is thought to have crystallized from magma on Mars 4.5 billion years ago and later to have been shocked and altered, perhaps by one or more nearby meteoroid or asteroid impacts. Still later, carbonate mineral grains were introduced into shock-induced fractures in the rock. Another large impact blasted the rock off the Martian surface and into solar orbit with a velocity greater than the planet’s escape velocity of 5 km per second (11,000 miles per hour). Over time the rock’s orbit was altered such that it approached Earth, eventually falling in Antarctica about 13,000 years ago.

(Read Carl Sagan’s Britannica entry on extraterrestrial life.)

In 1996 NASA scientists who carried out microscopic and chemical analyses on ALH84001 touched off a controversy by suggesting that the carbonates in the meteorite had been produced by Martian microorganisms. The carbonate grains are associated with organic compounds, contain minute crystals of iron minerals similar in size and shape to those produced by bacteria, and exhibit elongated objects resembling microscopic fossils. In subsequent investigations, other scientists contested the interpretation of these lines of evidence, demonstrating that each could be adequately explained by nonbiological processes or was not entirely consistent with what is known about microfossils and living microorganisms on Earth. The hypothesis that ALH84001 contains evidence for extraterrestrial life has not found wide acceptance, although there are strong indications that Mars may once have been hospitable to life.