“There is no way to date them. But it may have been here millions of years ago!
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NASA’s Curiosity rover stumbled upon a metallic rock on Mars that could allow scientists to better understand the Red Planet’s ancient past.
The rock, nicknamed Cacao, is about a foot in diameter and appears to be an iron-nickel meteorite, according to the US agency.
He discovered it in the “sulfate-containing unit,” a region of Mars’ Mount Sharp, the firm noted in a blog post about the discovery.
NASA shared a high-resolution symbol of the rock that formed from 20 other individual images taken through the rover.
One of the photographs is a close-up of Cacao observed on Curiosity’s ChemCam instrument.
This shows a portion of the meteorite that was pointed through the laser of the ChemCam instrument.
NASA noted that this laser research involves jumping rocks and reading the resulting steam to learn more about the rock’s composition.
The metallic hue of the rock can be noticed when it stands out from the arid rust-colored landscape of the Red Planet.
“Oscillate. Oscillate. Oscillate. Oscillate. Oscillate. METEORITE!” It’s not unusual to locate meteorites on Mars, in fact, I’ve done it several times!But replacing the landscape is good,” the Curiosity rover’s official Twitter account said.
NASA suspects the rock likely had a “large crater” in the past.
“Over time, erosion and other forces flatten the domain around it, cutting everything to the hardest material,” said one tweet in reaction to a user who asked about any evidence of impact.
The Curiosity rover is believed to have encountered several of those strange rocks in its decade-long exploration of the Red Planet.
In 2016, he discovered the “Egg Rock,” also nicknamed “golf ball,” and in 2014, he came across a 7-foot-long meteorite that the Curiosity team called “Lebanon. “
In early 2005, the Opportunity rover discovered the Heat Shield Rock, a meteorite that is the first known rock of its kind on the surface of any other planet.
Generally, metallic meteorites that land on Earth’s surface tend to oxidize in a short geological time, however, due to the lack of oxygen and moisture on Mars, those area rocks can remain bright for millions of years.
“But it may have been here millions of years ago!” the Curiosity rover’s Twitter account said of the new discovery.
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The Cacao meteorite observed in Curiosity’s shadow on Jan. 27, 2023, the 3724th Martian, or earth, day of the mission.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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