Strangely speckled rocks discovered by NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance could provide new evidence that microbial life once existed on Mars.
Perseverance’s science team named the rock, which is 3.2 feet long and 2 feet wide (1 meter, 0.6 meters), Ceyava Falls. It was discovered on July 21 as the rover slowly explored an area known as the Neretva Valley, a likely site for liquid water and therefore life, billions of years ago when Mars was warmer than it is now.
At first glance, the rock’s most distinctive features are long white veins of calcium sulfate and bands of hematite, elements thought to contribute to Mars’ red color. But when Perseverance zoomed in, it revealed dozens of off-white circles with black borders, each about a millimeter wide, which NASA described as “resembling the spots of a leopard.” When Perseverance analyzed their chemical composition, NASA scientists found that the black rings contained iron and phosphate.
“These spots are a big surprise,” said David Flannery, an astrobiologist and member of the Perseverance science team. statement“On Earth, these rock features are often associated with the fossil record of microorganisms living underground.”
On Earth, the spots form due to chemical reactions that turn the red hematite rock white, but also produce dark iron and phosphate rings, which also release energy that microbes can use to feed.
Perseverance scientist Ken Farley calls Cheyaba Falls “the most mysterious, complex, and potentially important rock formations the rover has found so far,” but acknowledges that much remains unknown about how they formed. One possibility is that the rock started out as mud containing organic compounds that eventually transformed into rock. Liquids seeping into the rock’s cracks could result in veins and patchy deposits of calcium.
Another explanation is the presence of olivine, another mineral that forms in magma, at Cheyava Falls, suggesting that the Cheyava Falls spots could have been caused by chemical reactions when the area was heated to uninhabitable temperatures.
NASA scientists say they’ve done all they can to analyze the rocks with instruments aboard Perseverance, and further study will require bringing the Cheyaba Falls back to Earth. Now, a surprising discovery has been made. Childish humor, Continuing exploration of the Neretva Valley. The space agency currently aims to send a crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s, but that could be a long way off given the frequent postponements of the mission to send humans back to the Moon.
