A handful of Calcium-rich achondrites found around the world display characteristics identical to soil samples analysed by the Viking space probes.
They are known as SNC meteorites after the first three locations that they were found, Shergotty in India, Nahkla in Egypt and Chassigny in France.
Shergotty, India
  Stone Museum of Geology |
This sealed capsule contains dust from the martian meteorite that fell on 25th August 1865 over Bihar, India. The complete meteorite, known as a Shergottite, weighed in at 11 lbs. |
Nakhla, Egypt
40 stones (Nakhlites) totalling almost 90lbs fell on 28th June 1911 at Abu Hommos, Alexandria, Egypt.
Chassigny, France
October 3, 1815, a stone was observed to fall from the sky after loud sonic booms were heard. Although it was estimated that the meteorite originally weighed about 9 lbs, there is only about 1¼ lbs preserved of the meteorite today. Chassigny is distinctly different from the other SNC's, so it has been assigned its own signature subgroup, chassignite, to distinguish it from the shergottites and nakhilites.
Zagami, Katsina Province, Nigeria
A single stone weighing almost 50lbs was observed to fall on 3rd October 1962. This meteorite is similar to that found in India, so is termed a shergottite.
A number of these types of meteorite are now being discovered in the Antarctic Strewn Field
