NASA’s Mars Perservance spacecraft captured this image of a possible meteorite on the Red Planet on June 23, 2023. (Image credit: Future)
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover rolled on top of a rocky donut that may have fallen from the sky.
On Friday (June 23), Perseverance captured an image of a large, dark stone with a hole in its center. The interesting rocks are surrounded by others of the same colour, which suggests a common ancestry – that could extend beyond Mars.
Representatives of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California, said the donut rock “could be a large meteorite along with smaller pieces.” he said via Twitter Monday (June 26).
Related: 12 stunning photos from Perseverance’s first year on Mars
Such a discovery would not be unprecedented. perseverance I spotted a possible meteorite Just weeks after it landed in February 2021, for example.
And the rover’s larger cousin, Curiosity, has discovered a number of space rocks on Mars since its August 2012 landing, including a mineral rock it dubbed cocoa in February of this year.
By the way, the discovery of Perseverance is not the first pastry-shaped rock on which a robot from Mars has rolled. In January 2014, NASA’s Opportunity spacecraft saw a stone that was white on the outside and red on the inside, prompting mission team members to compare it to a jelly cake.
Perseverance is exploring a 28-meter (45-kilometer) wide Martian crater called Jezero, which billions of years ago housed a large lake and river delta. The car-sized rover is mapping this ancient environment, looking for signs of ancient life and collecting dozens of samples for future return to Earth.
A small helicopter called Ingenuity helps the large rover to operate. Creativity traveled to Mars with Perseverance and quickly completed its five-flight test mission, which demonstrated that atmospheric exploration is possible on the Red Planet.
The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) helicopter is now immersed in an extended mission, looking for promising science routes and targets for its robotic partner to investigate. Ingenuity has completed 51 flybys of Mars so far, covering a total of 7.3 miles (11.7 kilometers) of the Red Planet’s soil.
