Hello Canada – Agencies – NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered a strange rock on the surface of Mars that has puzzled scientists. It is filled with hundreds of tiny dark spheres that may hold important clues about the history of the Red Planet.
The Perseverance mission team named the rock “St. Paul’s Bay,” and it featured hundreds of millimeter-sized, dark gray, spherical bumps, some of which contained tiny holes.
St. Paul’s Bay, located on the slopes of Witch Hazel Hill, is a rock formation that extends over 101 meters, with each layer serving as a page in the history of Mars.
But it is believed that this particular rock may have been washed to the site from elsewhere.
NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers previously observed rocks with a similar texture near their landing sites in Endurance and Gale craters. Scientists interpreted these formations as “sedimentary spheres” resulting from the interaction of groundwater that flowed through the pores of the rocks.
Last year, Perseverance also captured popcorn-like rocks, which also indicate past groundwater flow. But these formations may also result from volcanic processes, such as the rapid cooling of molten rock droplets during an eruption, or from meteorite impacts, where vaporized rock condenses.
“Each of these formation mechanisms will have very different implications for the evolution of these rocks, so the team is working hard to determine their context and origin,” the mission team explained.
The rover is currently on an additional mission exploring the rim of Jezero Crater, where ancient groundwater may have interacted with rocks in a way that created an environment entirely different from what has previously been discovered on the crater floor.
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