Life-Hunting Perseverance Rover Just Found Its ‘Most Important’ Martian Rock Yet

A bizarre, spotted stone detected by NASA’s Perseverance rover could beryllium caller grounds that Mars was erstwhile location to microbial life.

The Perseverance subject squad dubbed the rock, which measures 3.2 feet by 2 feet (1 metre by 0.6 meters), Cheyava Falls. It was picked up connected July 21 during the rover’s dilatory expedition of a portion known arsenic Neretva Vallis. The vale was location to liquid h2o billions of years agone erstwhile Mars was warmer and truthful a apt spot for beingness to person blossomed. 

At archetypal glance, the rock’s astir distinctive features are agelong achromatic veins of calcium sulfate and bands of what is apt hematite, an constituent that contributes to Mars’ reddish coloring. But erstwhile Perseverance zoomed in, determination were dozens of off-white circles with achromatic borders, each astir a millimeter successful width that NASA described arsenic being “akin to leopard spots.” When Perseverance analyzed their chemic makeup, NASA scientists discovered that the achromatic rings contained robust and phosphate.

“These spots are a large surprise,” said David Flannery, an astrobiologist and subordinate of the Perseverance subject team, successful a statement. “On Earth, these types of features successful rocks are often associated with the fossilized grounds of microbes surviving successful the subsurface.”

On our planet, the spots hap owed to chemic reactions that crook reddish hematite rocks white, but besides nutrient the achromatic robust and phosphate rings. The reactions besides merchandise vigor that microbes tin provender on.

While Perseverance task idiosyncratic Ken Farley called Cheyava Falls “the astir puzzling, analyzable and perchance important rock” yet recovered by the rover, helium acknowledged that overmuch astir however it formed remains unexplained. One anticipation is that the stone was initially mud containing integrated compounds that yet turned into rock. When fluid penetrated fissures successful the rock, it brought mineral deposits that created the calcium veins and spots. 

Another mentation comes from the beingness of different mineral successful Cheyava Falls: olivine, which forms successful magma. That suggests Cheyava Falls’ spots whitethorn person travel astir owed to a chemic absorption during a clip erstwhile the country was heated to a somesthesia incompatible with life. 

NASA scientists said they’ve done each they tin to analyse the stone with Perseverance’s onboard instruments; further survey would necessitate bringing Cheyava Falls backmost to Earth. Now, the rover, which has go known for some stunning discoveries and juvenile humor, is continuing its exploration of Neretva Vallis. The abstraction bureau is presently aiming to nonstop a crewed ngo to Mars successful the 2030s. However, fixed the frequent delays successful its mandate to bring humans backmost to the Moon, this whitethorn not hap for rather immoderate time.