NASA’s Perseverance rover has photographed a very particular white rock on Mars. Here’s what it’s about.
NASA’s Perseverance rover, which has been on Mars since February 2021, recently discovered a white-colored boulder on the surface of Mount Washburn, a hill within Jezero Crater. The rock measures 45 x 35 centimetres and it was called “Atoko Point”, because it resembles those found on Earth, inside the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
What we know about the white rock photographed on Mars
But while on Earth this type of rock is made up of limestone, the Atoko point on the Red Planet is made up of pyroxene and feldspar, components of igneous and metamorphic rocks. The researchers hypothesized two possible explanations for this unique discovery. Either the rock formed elsewhere and was transported to Jezero Crater long ago by a Martian river, or it formed underground and eventually made its way to the surface.
The science team responsible for Perseverance’s endeavors was eager to study the wide variety of rocks on Mount Washburn. Co-lead Brad Garczynski of Western Washington University says they represent a “bag of geologic gifts,” but Atoko Point was the one that stood out for the diversity of its rocks.
This type of rocks on Earth
When we first saw the image of Atoko Point, we thought they looked like the clear interiors of several meteorites in our collection. For example, the interior of Camel Donga, located on the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia, is eerily similar. And in fact its main minerals are pyroxene and plagioclase, a type of feldspar, the same constituents that make up Atoko Point. Camel Donga is classified as a eucrite, a type of meteorite that is a piece of the asteroid 4 Vesta.
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