Meteorite to head home to Red Planet

[Still Waters]

A small chunk of Mars will be heading home when the US space agency launches its latest rover mission on Thursday.

Nasa's Perseverance robot will carry with it a meteorite that originated on the Red Planet and which, until now, has been lodged in the collection of London's Natural History Museum (NHM).

The rock's known properties will act as a calibration target to benchmark the workings of a rover instrument.

t will give added confidence to any discoveries the robot might make.

"This little rock's got quite a life story," explained Prof Caroline Smith, head of Earth sciences collections at the NHM and a member of the Perseverance science team.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53491555

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jul/26/rock-from-mars-heads-home-after-600000-years-on-earth

[SHaYap]

Now if the museums will follow the example and return all the historical artifacts back to it's region of origin... 

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