NASA’s Perseverance Rover Discovers Colorful Rock ‘Wallace Butte’ on Mars: Could It Hold Clues to Ancient Life?

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – perseveranceA robot explorer belonging to the United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has made a special discovery on the surface of Mars. This red rock was found in the Serpentine Rapids area about 20 days after driving to Neretva Vallis.

Launching the NASA page on Tuesday (29/10/2024), NASA states that this rock is called Wallace Butte. Persistence uses drill bits to create scratch spots on boulders to collect samples of these rocks.

This exploratory robot found amazing white, black and green colors in the rock. Of the many colors that can be seen in the rock, the dark green spots are the most obvious within the scratch spots.

These spots consist of a dark core with faded light green edges. On Earth, similar patches form when liquid water flows through sediment before it solidifies into rock, triggering chemical reactions that turn oxidized iron into a smaller form.

According to NASA, iron reduction reactions sometimes involve microbes on Earth. In addition to iron reduction, the appearance of green spots can also occur due to rotting organic matter leading to local reduction.

There are many reasons why these green spots appear on Wallace Butte. Some may contain microbes, so it is important that Sustainability looks more closely at these rocks.

Unfortunately, the rover arm was unable to examine the green spots more closely to determine their exact composition. Therefore, the composition of the rock remains a mystery.

“There is not enough space to place the rover arm containing the SHERLOC and PIXL instruments directly above one of the green spots in the scrub field,” NASA’s website wrote.

Previously, Perseverance had taken a journey from Mount Washburn to reach “Bright Angel”, an area within the Neretva Vallis area. Experts believe that this area is an old river that once flowed into the Jezero Crater.