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NASA reported that the rover Perseverance found an unusual rock on Mars. This is because it can be a iron-nickel meteorite. She was named Phippsakslahas approximately 80 cm in diameter and stands out, as it is different of the flat and fractured terrain on which it lies.
Perseverance is studying the unusual object while working in the crater Lakewhere he has been studying since 2021.
How did Perseverance “notice” the unique rock on Mars?
- Perseverance photographed Phippsaksla in the days September 2nd and 19thbut only in Thursday (13) NASA revealed the discovery;
- This is largely due to the strike of the government systems of the United States, which ended disrupting communications agency routine;
- If the space object is a meteorite, this would be the first discovery of the Perseverance type.
The rover used the instrument SuperCamlast week, to observe Phippsakla, which determined that the rock has high concentration of iron and nickel.
Objects with this mineral characteristic have already been found on Mars by rovers Opportunity e Spiritso the fact that Perseverance hadn’t yet found something like that puzzled researchers.
Candice Bedford, a research scientist at Purdue University (USA), said that “it was a bit unexpected that Perseverance had not detected iron-nickel meteorites inside Jezero Crater, especially considering its similar age to Gale Crater and the number of smaller impact craters, which suggests that meteorites fell at the bottom, in the delta and on the edge of the crater over time.”
Concentration of iron and nickel found in Phippsakla is unusual
During SuperCam’s analysis, when the team came to the conclusion of elevated iron and nickel levels, they also concluded that this is something common in meteorites that come from the interior of large asteroids, so that, based on its chemical composition, it was not formed on Mars, but, yes, it originated in somewhere from Space and only then fell on the red planet.
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Meteorites are common
While it is easier to detect such space objects on other planets, this does not apply to Earth, even though the presence of meteorites in our atmosphere is common.
Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons of meteorites hit us daily, however, a large part burns in the atmosphere or falls into the oceans. So far, they have been detected here 60 mil of these debris.
Most of them come from asteroids, but a small portion are originating from Moon and Mars. On Earth, at least 175 Martian meteorites.
Returning to the red planet, these meteorites loaded with iron and nickel usually resist to the Martian elements and survive there. Since 2005the Meteoritic Society, which monitors meteorites found in various parts, recognized 15 of these space objects on Mars, all detected by rovers.
NASA researchers think iron-containing meteorites could resist erosion on the red planet. This would explain why some of them appear in flat land and not in craters. There are cases in which the crater may have worn out long ago, leaving only the rock.
While scientists plan to determine the origin from Phippsaksla from extra analysisPerseverance operates on rocks oldestof previous impacts, fora from Jezero.
According to Bedford, “if this rock is found to be a meteorite, Perseverance could finally join the list of Mars rovers that have investigated fragments of rocky objects that have visited the planet.”
