Weird Striped Discovery On Mars Leaves NASA Scientists Stunned
The new find is not the first striped rock spotted by Perseverance on its trek across Mars. It also found a vein-filled rock the team nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” in July, which scientists believe may have harbored microscopic life from billions of years ago. Early analysis by instruments aboard Perseverance showed the rock possessed qualities that may be possible indicators of ancient life, according to NASA. Now, the Mars rover has come across another striped rock, and has scientists both stunned and excited for what discoveries may be to come.
Team members spotted the unusually striped rock via some of Perseverance’s low resolution Navcam images. The team, which nicknamed the rock ‘Freya Castle,’ then planned a multispectral observation using the rover’s Mastcam-Z camera in order to get a better view before driving away. Once the new data was downlinked a few days later, and Perseverance had already left the area, it became clear to the team that ‘Freya Castle’ was about 20cm across, and had striking black-and-white stripes.
While people across social media have been concocting all types of stories about what they believe the rock’s origins to be, NASA’s science team admits its knowledge is limited. The team noted the striped rock is unlike any seen in Jezero Crater before, and perhaps all of Mars. Team members also say their knowledge of its chemical composition is limited as well, but early interpretations are that igneous and/or metamorphic processes could have created its stripes.
On its way to the Jezero Crater rim, Perseverance made a detour through a dune field to avoid wheel-rattling boulders. The area, nicknamed ‘Bright Angel,’ features rocky light-toned outcrops that may represent either ancient rock exposed by river erosion or sediments that once filled the channel. One rock in particular, nicknamed ‘Atoko Point,’ caught the team’s attention.
Atoko Point was about 18 inches wide and 14 inches tall, with a speckled tone that made it stand out from the rest of the boulders surrounding it. Analysis by Perseverance’s SuperCam and Mastcam-Z instruments indicated the rock was composed of the minerals pyroxene and feldspar. This led some of the team members to speculate the minerals that make Atoko Point were produced in a subsurface body of magma that is possibly exposed now on the crater rim.
NASA remarked Freya Castle is merely the latest in a series of intriguing rocks found recently on the Martian surface. The question these rocks have scientists asking now is, “Could this be the first glimpse at ancient rocks uplifted from depth by the Jezero impact, now exposed on the crater rim?” Hopefully that question will be answered in due time.
