The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Mars Perseverance Rover has discovered a mysterious “zebra rock” on Mars.
According to Live Science, NASA believes that the black and white striped rock on the red planet could lead to exciting discoveries.
The space agency said that the rover was driving across the “unremarkable pebbly terrain” of the planet when the researchers found a rock with “hints of unusual texture.”
The rover took a picture of the rock, which is now dubbed “Freya Castle,” and sent it back to Earth.
NASA representatives wrote in the statement, “Since Freya Castle is a loose stone that is clearly different from the underlying bedrock, it has likely arrived here from someplace else... Our knowledge of its chemical composition is limited, but early interpretations are that igneous and/or metamorphic processes could have created its stripes.”
As per the space agency, the Freya Castle is eight inches (20 centimetres) across with a unique texture possibly formed by igneous or metamorphic processes.
One of the possibilities is that the rock rolled down farther up the canyon. NASA representatives said, “This possibility has us excited. We hope that as we continue to drive uphill, Perseverance will encounter an outcrop of this new rock type so that more detailed measurements can be acquired."
Scientists are hopeful that this new discovery of zebra rock will be one of the remarkable discoveries of the rover's fifth mission.
