During a recent exploration of the Jezero crater rim, the Perseverance Mars rover deviated from its course. Its target was a strange field of bright white rocks that attracted a lot of interest from the team of scientists.
Perseverance has been climbing the steep slopes of Jezero Crater for more than two months. As it approaches the top, it observes more and more varied and strange kinds of rocks. Even in the area of the Neretva Vallis (a river bed was located in its place in the past), the rover noticed a lot of colorful boulders. And even more recently, the mission team and many internet users were mesmerized by Freya Castle , a rock striped like a zebra.
However, the crater rim is not finished giving surprises. In late October, a very unusual field of bright white rocks appeared in the field of view of Perseverance. Scientists gave it the name Mist Park.
We find white rocks in many different places on Earth, and this is not surprising given the variety of light-colored minerals that can form through various geologic processes. However, on Mars, where plate tectonics is absent, and the basaltic crust is dominated by dark minerals such as olivine and pyroxene, white rocks are a great rarity.
The mission’s science team has planned several observations using Perseverance remote sensing instruments to assess the composition of these unusual rocks, including multispectral imaging with Mastcam-Z and Supercam laser transmission. They hope these observations will shed light on the formation of these white rocks. Unfortunately, none of them are large enough to safely examine up close using Perseverance’s robotic arm tools. But the rover will look for larger fragments or outcrops of similar rocks as it continues up the slope.
Besides the unusual composition, another mystery is how these rocks got there. All the rocks are scattered over an area of only a few square meters. Perhaps they are erosional remnants of some resistant vein or rock where the softer, surrounding layers have weathered away. According to another version, they could have rolled down the slope. In that case, Perseverance would have to find similar white material during the ascent.
Earlier we told you about how a Chinese rover found evidence of an ancient ocean on Mars.
Provided by NASA
