NASA rover discovers mysterious light-toned boulder “never observed before” on Mars

While exploring a crater on Mars that could give scientists information about life that potentially once existed there, NASA said its Perseverance rover made an unprecedented discovery. The rover, which landed on the Red Planet in 2021 specifically to probe the ancient Jezero Crater, found a mysterious light-toned stone earlier this month that was the first of its kind seen on Martian land.

Perseverance found the rock while crossing the Neretva Vallis, a dry river delta that flowed into the crater billions of years ago, on its way to an area inside the rim where rock outcrops are being examined for sediments that could shed light on the rock. history of Mars. NASA said. The rover changed course along its route to avoid rough terrain when, taking a shortcut through a dune field, it reached a hill scientists dubbed Mount Washburn.

The hill was covered with rocks, some of them that NASA described as belonging to “a type never observed before on Mars”.

One small rock particularly intrigued scientists working on Perseverance from Earth. Measuring about 18 inches in diameter and 14 inches tall, the speckled and visibly light-toned rock was spotted among a field of darker rocks on the hill.

“The diversity of textures and compositions at Mount Washburn was an exciting discovery for the team, as these rocks represent a suite of geological gifts brought from the crater rim and potentially beyond,” said Brad Garczynski of Western Washington University, who co- leads the current Perseverance mission, in a statement. “But among all these different rocks, there was one that really caught our attention.”

Garczynski and his team dubbed the mysterious rock Atoko Point, and deeper examination of the rock using the rover’s instruments suggested it was composed of the minerals pyroxene and feldspar. NASA said the size, shape and general arrangement of the minerals at Atoko Point, as well as the rock’s potential composition at a chemical level, put the rock “in a league of its own” in terms of Martian sediments, at least among those already known to scientists.

Pyroxene and feldspar are minerals also found in the Earth’s crust and on the Moon, according to US Geological Survey It is NASA. The space agency said some scientists on the Perseverance team speculated that the minerals detected at Atoko Point may have come from magma that originated beneath the surface of Mars and became exposed on the rim of Jezero Crater over time due to erosion.

Other team members suggested that the stone may have appeared out of place on Washburn Hill if it had actually been produced in a different part of the planet and moved with the ancient river channel to its current location on the rim. But NASA said all Perseverance scientists believe there should be more rocks with similar composition elsewhere on Mars.

The rover discovered Atoko Point in the middle of its fourth Mars “campaign,” which focuses on finding evidence of carbonate and olivine deposits inside the Jezero Crater. Both groups of minerals exist on Earth, with carbonate typically found in deposits near the shores of the lakes and olivine typically associated with volcanic activity.

They are of interest to scientists studying Mars — and both have already been observed by Perseverance — due to their ability to encapsulate traces of the past over long periods of time. Identifying carbonate in the Martian crater could theoretically give scientists access to traces of ancient life on the planet preserved within the mineral itself, and olivine helps them understand when in history the Martian climate may have been conducive to organic compounds such as running water and, potentially, life.

Scientists say learning about the composition of Mars, and what it might have been like a long time ago, could help them figure out whether the planet’s current landscape could ever be habitable for humans. It could also offer important clues about the origins and evolution of life on Earth.