Launched in July 2020, the Mars Perseverance rover continues to explore the planet’s 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater for signs of ancient microbial life.
Launched in July 2020, the Mars Perseverance rover continues to explore the planet’s 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater for signs of ancient microbial life, according to NASA. The rover collects samples of rock and broken rock and soil for possible return to Earth by a future Mars mission.
The Perseverance team hasn’t made the rover go closer to the doughnut-shaped rock to examine or sample it, so its exact makeup and origins are unknown, said Jim Rice, an assistant research scientist in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Rice, who is on the rover’s Mastcam-Z imaging team, first spotted the rock on June 14.“I can’t say with absolute, 100% certainty it’s not a meteorite, but I think it’s highly unlikely,” Rice said.
The river channel likely transported the doughnut-shaped rock from another area, he added. The rock is larger than 25 centimeters wide, but exactly how much larger is unknown, Rice said. The rock is surrounded by smaller rocks or fragments, “so maybe a meteorite that broke up upon landing,” Lee said. In this case, the doughnut shape could have been created by weaker materials in the rock eroding upon entering Mars’ atmosphere, he added.
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