It’s always nice when the NASA rover finds something interesting on the surface of the Red Planet. Sometimes it’s debris from a spacecraft or rocks that look like a cat. The team of the Curiosity rover is puzzling over an amazing piece of gray rock that stands out among other rocks on the surface. It could very well be a meteorite.
Curiosity is currently exploring Gale Crater, climbing the slopes of its huge central Mount Sharp. One of the areas of interest is a geological formation called the Marker Strip, the origin of which remains unknown. A mysterious rock from another world was found just under it.
Mars has a long history of being bombarded by rocks from outer space. NASA’s InSight lander, which stopped working on New Year’s Eve, even picked up the sounds of meteorite collisions during its mission.
In 2016, NASA investigated a meteorite called Egg Rock, found by Curiosity. Egg Rock is an iron meteorite that at first could have been part of the asteroid’s core. Scientists are interested in how the Martian environment affects iron meteorites and how it compares with terrestrial conditions.
Curiosity has been on Mars for more than 10 years, but its findings never get old. The mysterious rock is just the last piece of visual intrigue from a fascinating planet.
Earlier we reported that an elusive element was found in a rare Martian meteorite.
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