Mumbai lads' rocks match those on Mars

The rock sample sent by two Mumbai lads to Arizona State University in National Aeronautics and Space Administration's "Rock around the world" programme, has found similarity with the rocks found on Mars planet.

The rock sample sent by two Mumbai boys--Mayuresh Marathe and Anmol Nathani-- have similarity with the rocks that are found on Mars planet, NASA scientists told reporters in Mumbai on Wednesday.

One of the scientist Michael Wyatt said the rock sent by Mayuresh was an iron core commonly found on earth and is also found to be in abundance on Mars.

A science graduate, Mayuresh, collected the red rock at Vikhroli station and sent it to Arizona State University in December last year after going through the invitation for students on the portal.

"I was very happy after I received an acknowledgement from NASA for sending the rock sample," Mayuresh told reporters.

Similarly Nathani, son of a geologist, had collected the rock sample from a hill near his residence at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai. Wyatt said the rock sent by Nathani is a sedimentary rock and resembles that found on Mars.

For Nathani, the NASA certificate acknowledging his participation is a moment to cherish as he once had ambition to join NASA.

Amitabh Ghosh, member of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission who is leading the NASA scientist team in the tour of the country, said they have received around 5000 rock samples from students all over the world through the programme.

"However, there was very low participation from India," he said adding, the efforts of his team was to inculcate scientific attitude in the students.