Several explosions were heard before it fell to Earth in an area of 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) in diameter, and about forty pieces were recovered;[4] the fragments were buried in the ground up to a metre deep.

[1] One fragment of the meteorite was said to have landed on a dog, as observed by a farmer named Mohammed Ali Effendi Hakim in the village of Denshal supposedly vaporizing the animal instantly.

[8] In March 1999, after receiving part of the meteorite from the British Museum in 1998,[4] a team from NASA's Johnson Space Center examined the Nakhla meteorite using an optical microscope and a powerful scanning electron microscope (SEM), revealing possibly biomorphic forms of a limited size range, among other features.

[9][10] London's Natural History Museum, which holds several intact fragments of the meteorite, allowed NASA researchers to break one open in 2006, providing fresh samples, relatively free from Earth-sourced contamination.

[9] A debate took place at the 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March 2006 in Houston, Texas over the postulate that carbon-rich content within the pores of the rocks consisted of the remains of living matter.

[11] A team concluded in 2014 that although the non-biological scenario is considered to be the most reasonable explanation for the shapes in this meteorite, it is evident that the Martian subsurface contains niche environments where life could develop.