Mars Dust

Mars painted with incredibly rare Mars rock.

I have made oil paint from material that originated on the surface of Mars, from martian meteorites. These meteorites start as a part of the martian surface and are ejected into space when Mars is impacted by other space rocks like asteroids. The ejected surface material is captured by the earth's gravity until it eventually crashes into the earth's surface.

These samples are even rarer than lunar meteorites as Mars is that much further away; the closest we are to Mars is about 35 million miles so the material needs to travel that distance, in the right direction to get close enough to Earth to be captured by its gravity.

I mix the fine martian meteorite powder in oil to make a paint which is a light red/grey that turns quite dark when the oil is added.