Shergotty meteorite
Martian meteorite discovered in India
The Shergotty meteorite (named after Sherghati) is the first example of the shergottite Martian meteorite family. It was a 5-kilogram (11 lb) meteorite which fell to Earth at Sherghati, in the Gaya district, Bihar, India on 25 August 1865, and was retrieved by witnesses almost immediately. Radiometric dating indicates that it solidified from a volcanic magma about 4.1 billion years ago. It is composed mostly of pyroxene and is thought to have undergone preterrestrial aqueous alteration for several centuries. Certain features within its interior are suggestive of being remnants of biofilm and their associated microbial communities.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2975736. Authority coordinates are 24.574, 84.793. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1865.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shergotty meteorite” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.