An unusual meteorite has revealed the secrets of the Red Planet’s birth.

Munir Humayun, a professor in Florida State University’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science and a researcher at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, has found what may be the first acknowledged example of ancient Red Planet crust.

The research comes from an examination of a 4.4 billion-year-old Red Planet meteorite that was dug up by Bedouin tribesmen in the Sahara desert. The rock may be the first acknowledged sample of ancient Red Planet crust and contains a plethora of data about the origin and age of the Martian crust.

To unmask small quantities of chemicals in this meteorite, Humayun and his colleagues conducted an intricate examination of the meteorite utilizing an array of highly advanced mass spectrometers in the MagLab’s geochemistry department. High concentrations of trace metals like iridium, an element that suggests meteoritic barrage, revealed that this meteorite originated from the mysterious cratered area of the Red Planet’s southern highlands.

While craters coat more than 50 percent of the Red Planet, this is the first meteoric sample to originate from this area and the first time researchers are able to comprehend the planet’s early crustal development.

Utilizing the chemical data discovered in pieces of soil found in the meteorite, the researchers were able to determine the thickness of the Red Planet’s crust. Their determination matched up with estimates from independent spacecraft measurements and proves that the Red Planet did not deal with a humongous impact that melted the entire planet in its early history.

Utilizing a powerful microprobe at Curtin University, the researchers dated special crystals within the meteorite at an astonishing 4.4 billion years old.

“This date is about 100 million years after the first dust condensed in the solar system,” Humayun posited. “We now know that Mars had a crust within the first 100 million years of the start of planet building, and that Mars’ crust formed concurrently with the oldest crusts on Earth and the Moon.”

The researchers think that these groundbreaking findings will lead to additional discoveries as they continue to examine this unusual meteorite.

The study’s findings are described in greater detail in the journal Nature.