![nakhla-meteorite-fragment-655[1]](https://insider.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/nakhla-meteorite-fragment-6551.jpg)
On June 28, 1911, the Nakhla meteorite (a piece of which is shown here) fell to Earth at approximately 9 a.m. in the Nakhla region of Alexandria, Egypt. In 1962, the Smithsonian acquired this 480-gram piece. Nakhlites, Martian meteorites named for Nakhla, are igneous rocks rich in augite formed from basaltic magma about 1.3 billion years ago. The Nakhlites were suffused with liquid water around 620 million years ago and were ejected from Mars some 10.75 million years ago by an asteroid impact. See this link from the Division of Mineral Sciences at the National Museum of Natural History for more information.
