NASA's Perseverance rover has found a peculiar striped rock nicknamed 'Freya Castle' within Jezero Crater on Mars. Scientists believe it resembles metamorphic rocks found on Earth, suggesting past geological activity similar to our planet.
Mars Perseverance Rover 's September 13, 2024 view of Freya Castle , a strange-looking striped rock in Jezero Crater . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Kargel, who is not associated with the Perseverance mission, pointed out that the conditions under which Freya Castle formed on Mars would be similar to Earth’s. “Those conditions have been common on Earth, and erosion then eventually exposes the rocks at the surface. If this is an indigenous Mars rock, it likely would have undergone metamorphism in the lower crust, and then an impact blasted it out, and the rock landed where the rover could examine it,” he said.
Where there’s water, there’s sediment, which hardens into sedimentary rock. , sedimentary , and metamorphic.) Not surprisingly, the Perseverance rover continues to find sedimentary deposits and layers at Jezero. The delta is clay-rich, and the crater contains other materials known to be in contact with water. However, some of the rocks in Jezero are also igneous. That means they were created by volcanic activity and somehow brought to the crater.
One thing to keep in mind is that Perseverance looked at Freya Castle with its Left MASTCam-Z camera. A closer study of the rock’s mineralogy and chemistry using its onboard spectrometer could reveal far more information about Freya Castle’s origins. Planetary scientists raised questions about whether the Perseverance team might send the rover back to do a mineralogical study. For now, however, the MASTcam imagery has prompted much speculation.
Space Exploration Mars Perseverance Rover Jezero Crater Metamorphic Rock Freya Castle
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