Flashy news from Mars
By Ron Cowen
Early last year, just 2 months after the rover Spirit landed on the Red Planet, the craft recorded a strange streak across the Martian sky. Having analyzed the brightness, timing, and orientation of the streak, researchers now conclude that the event was most likely a meteor associated with a comet called Wiseman-Skiff.
If the scientists are correct, it would be the first time that astronomers have identified a Martian meteor and its parent comet, the researchers report in the June 2 Nature.