Editing Heat Shield Rock (section)

==Discovery==
''Opportunity'' encountered the meteorite entirely by chance, in the vicinity of its own discarded [[heat shield]] (hence the name).  ''Opportunity'' had been sent to examine the heat shield after exiting the crater [[Endurance (crater)|Endurance]]. This was the first meteorite found on another planet and the third found on another Solar System body{{snd}}two others, the millimeter-sized [[Bench Crater meteorite|Bench Crater]] and [[Hadley Rille meteorite|Hadley Rille]] meteorites, were found on the [[Moon]].

===Analysis===
The rock was initially identified as unusual in that it showed, from the analysis with the [[Mini-TES]] spectrometer, an infrared spectrum that appeared unusually similar to a reflection of the sky.  In-situ measurements of its composition were then made using the [[Alpha particle X-Ray spectrometer|APXS]], showing the composition to be 93% [[Iron]], 7% [[nickel]], with trace amounts of [[germanium]] (~300 ppm) and [[gallium]] (<100 ppm). [[Mössbauer spectroscopy|Mössbauer spectra]] show the iron to be primarily in metallic form, confirming its identity as an iron-nickel [[meteorite]], composed of [[kamacite]] with 5–7% nickel.    This is essentially identical to the composition of a typical [[Iron meteorite#Chemical classification|IAB iron meteorite]] found on Earth.  The surface of the rock shows the ''regmaglypts,'' or pits formed by the ablation of a meteorite during passage through the atmosphere, characteristic of meteorites. The largest dimension of the rock is nearing 31&nbsp;cm.<ref name="Meteorites"/>

No attempt was made to drill into the meteorite using the [[Rock Abrasion Tool]] (RAT), because testing on iron meteorites on [[Earth]] showed that the rover's drilling tools would be abraded and damaged.  The RAT was designed to drill into ordinary rock, not into iron-nickel alloy. [[Meridiani Planum]], the part of Mars where this meteorite was found, is suspected to have once been covered by a layer of material with a thickness of as much as {{convert|1|km}} which has been subsequently eroded. However no evidence suggests when it impacted. To survive impact largely undeformed it must have impacted at less than ~1.5&nbsp;km/s, which sets boundaries on its entry dynamics and Mars' atmosphere at the time it impacted. In any case, the meteorite did not show much sign of [[rust]].  In the absence of detailed knowledge of the Mars environment, it is not possible to conclude whether it fell recently or not.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}