When was 1st martian meteorite ID'd?

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brellis

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i just got back from the JPL open house -- it's great fun, and free admission -- anyway, i came away with a question:<br /><br />at what point were we able to identify a meteorite as coming from Mars? How did we figger it out? Did we need some science data from landers in order to nail it down? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>
 
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brellis

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I guess I 'stumped the astronomer', hehee. I went googling around, and found this article with the closest-to-definitive answer to my query:<br /><br />http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Mars/MarsThePlanet/MarsRocks.html<br /><br />"How do we know whether a meteorite came from Mars? Scientists take them into their laboratories to look at their mineral composition and compare trace gases trapped inside the rocks with those gases found on the surface of Mars by our Viking landers in the 1970s." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#ff0000"><em><strong>I'm a recovering optimist - things could be better.</strong></em></font> </p> </div>
 
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