Question: is it easy to study rocks from diffrent planets?

Natasha Stephen answered on 18 Jun 2014:

That would depend on what you mean by easy and hard.

As I have said already, if you mean is it hard to get into an area of science where you can work with rocks from space then maybe! It’s a small area of science as there aren’t many rocks from Mars in existence; just 69! With so few specimens, they have to be shared out between various groups of people so it can be quite hard to get into the right group of people, yes!

If instead you mean is it hard to work with the rocks on a daily basis then it can be! They’re so rare so we have to be careful not to destroy them at all so use as many non-destructive techniques as possible. My favourite thing to do with the rocks from Mars at the moment is to use X-rays to look at them and what they’re made of as it doesn’t damage them at all. We are able to look at the different minerals and work out where the rocks have come from on the Red Planet itself – mainly from volcanoes!