Posted by tourdemars to Meteorites at January 26, 2005 12:01 PM

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover has completed its inspection of “Heat Shield Rock” -- an iron meteorite the robot came across at Meridiani Planum, a cratered flatland that the machine has called home since landing on the red planet over a year ago. The pitted, basketball-size meteorite is mostly made of iron and nickel, as detected by the rover’s set of onboard spectrometers -- devices that map the presence of different elements on the surface of Mars. Meteors, often called “shooting stars” have been seen blazing through the Martian sky by both Opportunity and its sister ship, Spirit, now rolling through the Columbia Hills at Gusev Crater.