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Zagami

    Name given to a meteorite fallen in october, the 3rd 1962 in Zagami, in the province of Katsina, Nigeria.

    It's a martian meteorite of the variety Shergottite (SNC). It is the isotopic ratios of oxygen that make it possible to determine the Martian origin of a meteorite. Zagami was the second martian meteorite discovered, after EETA 79001, in which microscopic pockets of martian atmosphere were discovered. It's the biggest martian meteorite never discovered (18 tons).

    One afternoon in october 1962, this meteorite fell near a peasant. He heard a strong explosion ans was shaken by the breath of it. The meteorite had made a crater of 60 centimeters deep.

    From a mineralogical point of view, the Zagami meteorite contains pyroxenes, plagioclases (transformed into maskelynite), olivine (fayalite), amphiboles (present in some vitreous inclusions), phosphates (apatite ans whitlockite), sulphides (pyrrhotite), oxides (titanomagnetite) and finally glasses. From its texture and mineralogie, Zagami looks like a earthly dolerite, the only one diference about plagioclases, who was transformed in maskelynite at time of the ejection of the martian surface.

    In novemeber, the 7th 1996, 34 years after his arrival, a little Zagami fragment return to mars, attached to the thermal emission spectrometer (TER) of the rocket Mars Global Surveyor. It is a strong symbol, Zagami became the first meteorite coming back home.

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