I have read that Mars & Earth exchange rocks and that is how martian rocks happen to have been found on Antartica. But how does this happen? What kind of impact has to happen so we find rocks in another planet with millions of km of space inbetween?
In: Earth Science
Very big impacts indeed. Whenever large meteors strike a planet they move the atmosphere out of the way as they are coming through and when they hit the ground it is with such a force that some matter gets splashed up through this void in the atmosphere and out into the solar system. This does only happen with huge meteors and these are rare. It is more common on Mars both due to her lesser atmosphere and her lower gravity. But you do get large enough metors here on Earth as well. So tiny pieces of rock from the Earth have probably landed on Mars at some point.
An asteroid smashes into Mars, fragments of the planet reach escape velocity and orbit around the sun for millions of years and eventually land on Earth.
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