Tony Irving, geochemist, University of Washington It wasn't from Mars, and if it was a meteorite, it was highly unusual. Her first thought, when she heard that the rock might be from Mercury, was, 'That would be nice.' But she's not convinced.ДЇrom experience, I knew it was very unlikely to be an Earth rock. In the audience was Shoshana Weider, a fellow at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, who works on the Messenger mission. But scientists at the meeting were more skeptical. This March, Irving presented his theory at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas.

'Putting it all together, I could see that there was a possibility of proposing this Mercury idea.'ДЄnd that's just what he did. 'And it's very close to the present magnetic field of Mercury,' Irving says. It was smaller than almost anything yet seen in the solar system. One of the most exciting findings came from a colleague who had measured the magnetic field of one of the pieces. But Irving needed more evidence, so he packed up samples and sent them to colleagues around the country for further analysis. Experts predict that some chunks of Mercury may have already made the 57-million-mile trip to Earth, but none have been found. Every now and then, something big strikes a planet and knocks off a few chunks. ' quite amazed to find that some of the chemical features were a pretty close match.' 'I think it was the Messenger data that I had recently studied and just sort of compared it, on a whim almost,' Irving says. 'It wasn't from Mars, and if it was a meteorite, it was highly unusual.' As it turns out, the rock was even weirder than it looked. 'From experience, I knew it was very unlikely to be an Earth rock,' Irving says. Irving routinely receives such packages from all over the world. The olive green meteorite, flecked with bits of white and brown, first came to scientists' attention last year when a German collector, Stefan Ralew, saw the unusual stone in Morocco and shipped it off for analysis to Tony Irving, a geochemist and meteorite specialist affiliated with the University of Washington in Seattle. ' tells us something about the birth of the solar system, but not the birth of the innermost planet.' If that's true, the rock is 'still extremely interesting,' says Tim McCoy, who curates the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History's collection of 35,000 meteorites. Maybe, just maybe, they say, the 4.56-billion-year-old rock fell to Earth from the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. But scientists who've been puzzling over the stone ever since say the accumulating evidence may point in a different direction. It's been hailed as the first meteorite from the planet Mercury, but where it came from in the solar system isn't certain.ДЄ strange green rock discovered in Morocco last year was hailed by the press as the first meteorite from Mercury. Several fragments of this unusual rock were discovered last year in Morocco.

Murchison meteorite