NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured images of a highly unusual rock – one that seems highly out of place in comparison to the surrounding Martin dust.
The rock consists of hundreds of tiny brown blobs, spherical in nature, and has left the team behind the missions both confused and intrigued by its origin.
The planet has a rich volcanic history, dating back over 4.5 billion years. It was once covered with thousands of volcanoes which saw ‘super eruptions’, which NASA says is the most powerful type of volcanic blast there is.
Images of ‘Araneiforms’ were recently published by the space agency, which are dark cracks in the soil unlike anything on Earth.
However, despite these recent advancements in martian discovery, scientists are unable to fully explain what caused the strange texture of the rock discovered this month, saying that they are unsure what ‘quirk of geology’’ could’ve led to such unique formations.
One theory is that they could be ‘frothy lava’ that rapidly cooled, put forward by Dr Matthew Chojnacki, a planetary geologist at the Planetary Science Institute.
‘But it’s hard to tell without chemistry or mineralogy, especially given it’s a float rock (a piece of rock that is not part of the bedrock),’ he told MailOnline.
Another planetary geologist, Dr Joel Davis, hypothesises that they could’ve been formed by water circulating through the ground billions of years ago.
Speaking to MailOnline, he said that ‘This was potentially when conditions were too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface’.
The rock itself is made up of spherical pebbles (known as spherules), ranging from 0.01mm-4mm in diameter. Most of these spherules are fully globular, but some are more angular in nature. Some also have mysterious tiny holes in them.
The discovery comes after several other spherical objects were found on the surface of the red planet over the past twenty years.
The Opportunity Rover spotted ‘Martian Blueberries’ near the equator in 2004, which were identified as small and marble-like meteorite remnants.
The Curiosity rover spotted more spherules in the rocks of Yellowknife Bay in Gale crater 8 years later.
