He also noted the presence of micron-scale grains of baddeleyite, a highly durable zirconium-rich mineral that is often used in uranium–lead dating.

Those baddeleyite grains proved to be keystones for Moser’s subsequent investigations, which found them to be only hundreds of millions of years old.

The young baddeleyite formed nearly 200 million years ago when the shergottites’ source rock crystallized on or near the Martian surface.