The intrepid little Mars rover Perseverance was making its means throughout the Martian panorama when it got here throughout this exceptional scene not too long ago as detailed by JPL:
Shut-up of thriller rock
Just about all the rocks on Mars encountered so far have both been your run-of-the mill darkish gray to black volcanic basalts, or the lighter coloured sedimentary carbonate rocks within the historical lake mattress the rover is presently exploring (Jezero Crater). This rock is completely not like both, and if our present understanding of Mars’ obvious lack of convection-driven plate tectonics is appropriate, it actually should not exist.
In response to Perseverance’s instrumental evaluation, the whitish matrix materials appears to be primarily plagioclase feldspar and the a lot darker crystals are principally pyroxenes. However to those outdated geologist’s eyes, this rock appears to be like amazingly like a typical continental rock right here on Earth, granodiorite — a kind of rock that merely should not be there on Mars.
Martian geology and geological historical past simply bought much more attention-grabbing!