Image:Earth Sol63A UFO-A067R1.jpg

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This is an image of what is now believed to be the first meteor photographed on Mars. The image was taken by Mars rover Spirit on March 7, 2004 (Sol 63), at 04:50:19 local time (LST), with an exposure time of 15 seconds.

Analysis published in the June 2, 2005 issue of Nature indicates that this was likely a meteor from a Martian meteor shower whose parent body is comet 114P/Wiseman-Skiff and whose radiant is in the constellation Cepheus.

Because of the long exposure time, another possibility originally considered was that this could have been the Viking 2 Orbiter rather than a meteor.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

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