Allan Hills 81005

ALH A81005 was the first meteorite recognized to come from the Moon. It samples the anorthositic highlands of the Moon.

Allan Hills 84001

At about 4.5 billion years old, Allan Hills 84001 is much older than many other Mars meteorites. In 1996 several scientists proposed that this meteorite contains evidence for ancient life on Mars.

Bustee

Meteorites like Bustee are called regolith breccias. Regolith breccias contain trapped solar wind - a sign that they formed near the surfaces of their different parent asteroids

Cumberland Falls

Both fragmental breccias and regolith breccias have fragmented and broken textures. But the absence of trapped solar wind in meteorites like Cumberland Falls indicates that they are deeply buried fragmental breccias.

Elephant Moraine 87531

Howardites are mixtures of eucrite and diogenite fragments. Continuous bombardment of Vesta's surface excavated and reassembled pieces of those rocks into the hybrid howardites.

Elephant Moraine A79001

The black melt pockets in EET A79001 hold gas trapped during impact melting. The composition of this gas is identical to the martian atmosphere, providing the first evidence that EET A79001 came from Mars.

Johnstown

Diogenites are chemically related to eucrites and probably came from Vesta, too. They formed underground when pyroxene crystals solidified and sank in magma. Impacts excavated and broke up layers of the crystals, ultimately blasting these fragments into space.

Juvinas

The volcanic eucrites formed only 20-50 million years after the Solar System did--which means that some asteroids grew large enough to melt very early in Solar System history. Later impacts produced the broken texture seen in Juvinas.

Lafayette

Notice how the flow lines in Lafayette's black crust radiate from a single point, which marks the leading edge of the stone as it fell through Earth's atmosphere.

MacAlpine Hills 88105

A meteoroid impact ejected this rock from the Moon 300,000 years ago. It is similar to rocks collected in the lunar highlands by Apollo astronauts.

Nakhla

Nakhla formed on Mars when dense pyroxene (greenish-gray) and olivine (brown) crystals settled out of molten rock. It contains water-bearing minerals, supporting the idea that the Martian valleys once carried water.

Peña Blanca Spring

This meteorite is largely composed of enstatite, an iron-free variety of pyroxene. Pyroxene is common on Earth.

Shergotty

We know Shergotty came from Mars because it contains gas whose composition matches that of Mars's atmosphere as measured by the U.S. Viking spacecraft. An impact trapped the gas in the rock and flung it into space.

Zagami

A mere 180 million years old, Zagami is a fragment of a Martian lava flow. A giant impact catapulted it into space.