Bic Pic: A Six-Foot-Long Iron Meteorite On Mars
Francie Diep
at 11:16 AM Jul 17 2014
Bic Pic: A Six-Foot-Long Iron Meteorite On Mars
"Lebanon" the Meteorite
NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS/MSSS
Space // 

Meet Lebanon, an iron meteorite that NASA's Curiosity rover ran into on its 640th sol (Martian day) on Mars. Back here on Earth, it was May 25, 2020.

 

It's not clear why Curiosity's engineers named this hunk o' rock "Lebanon." Maybe it's a reference to the Middle Eastern country, which is sort of shaped like this. Other Martian iron meteorites have also received geographic names, including Block Island and Oileán Ruaidh, which is the Gaelic name for an island off the coast of Ireland.

[Jet Propulsion Laboratory]

comments powered by Disqus
Sign up for the Pop Sci newsletter
Australian Popular Science
ON SALE 30 OCTOBER
PopSci Live