On Earth, garnet is best known as the fiery red January birthstone — popular in jewellery since the Bronze Age and valued highly by ancient Egyptians.

Our team has now discovered a new rock type containing the mineral garnet inside a meteorite fragment from the planet Mars.

While garnet is common on Earth, we have previously only speculated about its existence in Mars’s interior and found rare, minute inclusions in Martian meteorites that formed during their ejection from the planet.

This is the first time the mineral has been identified within a rock that potentially formed within the crust of Mars itself.

As a planetary scientist and geologist, my main goal is to study the chemical and mineral makeup of rocks on Mars to help piece together the planet’s complex history. Our discovery of a new garnet-rich rock type is a significant step towards that goal.

Minerals preserve history

Mars has been the target of numerous exploration missions since the 1960s by satellites, landers and rovers.

Read more: Did NASA’s Curiosity rover find signs of ancient life on Mars? An astrobiologist explains how we determine ‘life’

While the search for signs of past life has driven these efforts, it is the inorganic components of Mars — its rocks and minerals — that preserve the record of the planet’s 4.5 billion-year history.

Minerals and rocks are produced by complex interactions among the........

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