NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, on a mission to explore the Red Planet, recently made an unexpected discovery: While navigating through a rocky path to avoid boulders, the rover stumbled upon a unique field of stones that scientists had not seen before.
Perseverance, which has been exploring Mars for three years, is on its fourth campaign in a dried-up river channel called Neretva Vallis. The channel once flowed into Jezero Crater, the main area of interest for the rover’s studies.
To steer clear of difficult terrain, Perseverance’s team used the rover’s AutoNav system, leading it to a hill covered with mysterious boulders. NASA said the rocks are unlike any previously observed on Mars.
Among the collection, one boulder stands out. It is a pale stone, measuring about 18 inches wide and 14 inches tall, contrasting sharply with the darker rocks around it. The boulder has been nicknamed “Atoko Point” by scientists.
The exact origin of Atoko Point remains a mystery. Some scientists suggest it may have been transported by ancient flowing water. However, Katie Stack Morgan, the deputy project scientist for the Mars 2020 mission, believes the discovery could be even more significant.
She told Mashable that the boulder is likely anorthosite, a type of rock known to exist on Earth and the moon but never seen on Mars before. If the rock is anorthosite, the finding suggests that Mars’ geology may be more similar to Earth’s than previously thought.
“Seeing a rock like Atoko Point is one of these hints that, yes, we do have anorthosites on Mars, and this might be a sampling of that lower crust material,” she said. “If we see it later on in the context of other rocks, it can give us a sense for how the earliest crust of Mars kind of came to be.”
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