NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has stumbled upon a desirable discovery while exploring the planet’s barren surface.
This time, it appears to be an iron-nickel meteorite nicknamed Cacao, which is about a foot in diameter and can be seen in an ultra-high-resolution image, assembled from 19 individual photographs taken across the rover on Jan. 28.
The mysterious object’s silvery metallic hue stands out like a sore thumb in the surrounding rust-colored landscape, a sulfated region of the Red Planet’s Mount Sharp.
“Roche. Roche. Roche. Roche. Roche. Roche. METEORITE!” the rover’s official Twitter account wrote. “It’s not uncommon to find meteorites on Mars, in fact, I’ve done it several times!cute. “
Oscillate. Oscillate. Oscillate. Oscillate. Oscillate. Oscillate. METEORITE!
It is not unusual to locate meteorites on Mars; In fact, I have done it several times!(see ?) But a stage replacement is nice.
This one is about a foot wide and is made of iron and nickel. We call it “Cocoa”. pic. twitter. com/I37HiGjN2t
– Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) February 2, 2023
Unfortunately, Curiosity, which has been roaming the surface for more than a decade, can take a sample of Cacao and take it home. This is one of the main targets of the cousin of the Perseverance rover, the only other rover active lately. wandering the surface of Mars, which has assiduously collected patterns of Martian rock and soil.
The meteorite may still allow scientists to obtain data about the ancient afterlife of the Red Planet or whether it ever harbored life. Scars and crevices on Cacao’s surface likely formed as it passed through the planet’s atmosphere, as Universe Today reports, despite the planet’s weak atmosphere.
Iron and nickel meteorites are also the rarest types of meteorites and have a great chance of surviving their adventure through the environment of Mars or Earth.
As the Curiosity team publishes in its update, the rover found several meteorites in Cacao, from the golf-ball-sized “egg stone” it discovered in 2016 to the massive seven-foot iron meteorite “Lebanon,” or “the Beast. “meteorite in 2014.
But there’s not much scientists are aware of about Curiosity’s latest discovery.
“There is no way to date them,” the team admitted in a reaction on Twitter. “But it may have been here millions of years ago!”
READ MORE: Curiosity Rover discovers a foot-long meteorite on the Martian surface [Gizmodo]
Learn more about Curiosity: NASA discovers on Mars