Weird striped rock 'unlike any seen on Mars' found by Perseverance rover. Here's why NASA's excited

[Admin]

While climbing a crater rim, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover spotted a curious striped rock that may have rolled from farther uphill, hinting at treasures the robotic explorer has yet to find.

Weird striped rock 'unlike any seen on Mars' found by Perseverance rover. Here's why NASA's excited : Read more

 

[Hildy]

Interesting, if true, but ISTM that the Occam's Razor explanation is that it's an Earth meteorite.

 

[Inmymind]

Interesting, if true, but ISTM that the Occam's Razor explanation is that it's an Earth meteorite.

How so?

 

[Elwood51]

"precious rock types that have been unearthed"

Unearthed? Don't you mean unmarsed?

 

[COLGeek]

"precious rock types that have been unearthed"

Unearthed? Don't you mean unmarsed?

Good one...

 

[billslugg]

The rock is a "one of a kind" with no apparent source, no known method of production on Mars. Earth has lots of it. The rovers have found meteorites before. The analysis will tell the tale.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

It doesn't look like a meteorite on its surface.

Finding a whole ledge of it farther up the rim would directly answer the question.

But, trying to distinguish between something volcanically ejected from elsewhere on Mars' surface vs some sort of meteorite that originated from Earth's surface seems highly problematic, given our miniscule knowledge of Mars' surface.

And, how would origin on other planetary bodies be ruled out? Ceres and Vesta come to mind, plus the possibility for other minor planets that may have been demolished in the vicinity of the asteroid belt over the previous 4 billion years.

Doing the types of analysis that we can't do with our rovers would help address that question, particularly isotopic analyses of various elements in the rocks.

Which is why we need to bring some of those samples back to Earth.

 

[NHEngineer]

All ARK Survivor players know what it is.

 

[Hildy]

It doesn't look like a meteorite on its surface.

Keep in mind that it would have been subjected to thousands or millions of years of weathering by Martian dust.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Why not billions of years?

Speculation gets us nowhere. Analyzing samples makes progress.