NASA’s Mars rover has made a “strange” and fascinating find on the Red Planet – a small crater-ravaged greenish rock.
Wednesday’s discovery has led to a closer look at Perseverance’s tools and scientists “are exchanging many hypotheses”, according to the rover’s Twitter page
“While the helicopter gets ready,” the report said, referring to a separate mission from the Ingenuity helicopter, “I can’t help but check out nearby rocks.
“This stranger has made my science team exchange many hypotheses,” it continued.
‘It’s about six inches long. If you look closely, you might see the row of laser marks where I zapped these to find out more. “
The rover’s laser is part of the SuperCam instrument, one of seven scientific instruments onboard the robot, according to Space.com.
Information gathered by the laser can help scientists figure out if the small green Martian rock formed in its place or was transported to the Jezero crater – an ancient lake bed – by the movement of water, by a meteor, or by a different kind of ‘impact’. event.”
‘Is it something weathered from the local rock? Is it a piece of Mars that fell into the area from a distant impact event? Is it a meteorite? Or something else? As the rover’s Twitter account explained.
Scientists hope that by the end of the month, Perseverance can find a suitable launch site for its mini-helicopter to explore more of the Red Planet.
The $ 2.7 billion Mars 2020 mission began in February and is expected to last several years, eventually preparing NASA for human exploration on Earth’s planetary neighbor.