Magnetic Dust
The
Pathfinder mission
proved that Mars has magnetic dust. If the Frass Meteorite is from Mars
and
it has transported some of the surface of Mars (including dust) to Earth, then
the dust contained within the Frass Meteorite should
have magnetic particles.
The picture to the left is from the Pathfinder and shows
the magnetic dust of Mars. The experiment is very simple. Several
magnets of varying strength are placed side by side. A circle magnet
surrounds a center magnet. At the bottom of the experiment are the color
charts,
so
that the picture can be calibrated to show the true color of Mars dust.
Virgin "dust" material taken
from the insides of the meteorite shows to be magnetic and very similar in color
t the dust collected on the Pathfinder magnet system. It is very hard for
me to get true color photographs, with the equipment that was available to me at
the time I did the magnetic experiments. But if one looks closely, many of
the particles below show the same color as the Martian dust on Pathfinder.
Also, after spending a great deal of time looking at the rock under various
light conditions, one thing
was
perfectly clear to me. The magnetic dust is made up of the smallest of the
volcanic particles and that's probably what is happening on Mars. Since
the volcanic material (the Frass Meteorite itself is slightly magnetic) of Mars
is mostly magnetic, and since the smaller gravity and lower atmospheric pressure
allow much thinner walls between the vesicles, and since these structures are
extremely delicate, it stands to reason the the magnetic dust of Mars is made up
of the very small particles of magnetic lava that blow through the Martian
atmosphere and cover the planet.
In the experiment above, I took the sandy material
released from the interior of the meteorite when
I obtained the first core
sample. I poured the dust directly into a Petri dish. The
magnet was brand new and had never been used and was completely clean when I
started the experiment. I used my handheld microscope (about 25x) and
watched as I moved the magnet over the top of the Petri dish, never touching the
dish or the sandy material. The magnet would have been about an inch above
the sand. I watched as a number of particles made the jump from the dish
to the magnet. The smallest particles above would be the ones that made
the jump. I had to lay the magnet down to take the picture and some of the
larger particles stuck to the magnet at that time. Also, since the sand
has been dry for more than 13 million years, the particles tend to have a lot of
static electricity and this also caused some particles to move to the magnet
once it was placed in the Petri dish.