NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this donut-shaped rock in Jezero Crater from about 328 feet (100 meters) away using the Remote Microscopic Imager (RMI), part of the SuperCam instrument, on June 22, 2023 , the 832nd Martian day, or sol. , in the mission.
Unusually shaped rocks are not common, either on Earth or Mars; it is usually formed over the years as the wind blows the sandblast rock face. This particular rock may have formed after a small rock (or rocks) broke off near its center. That left a hole that was later enlarged by air.
The figure below shows the same rock in its wider context, when it was first seen by the rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument from about 1,312 feet (400 meters away) on April 15, 2023, the -765 Martian days, or sol, of the mission. .
SuperCam is led by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the body unit of the instrument is manufactured. That part of the instrument includes several spectrometers as well as control electronics and software. The mast unit, including the RMI, was developed and built by several laboratories of the CNRS (the French research center) and French universities under the contracting authority of the Center National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency.
Arizona State University leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working with Malin Space Science Systems of San Diego, in the design, manufacture, testing, and operation of the cameras, and in collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of the University in Copenhagen to design, manufacture, and test calibration targets.
A key goal of the Perseverance mission to Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will describe the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and store Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
The next NASA missions, in collaboration with the ESA (European Space Agency), will send a spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
Citation: Perseverance discovers donut-shaped rock on Mars (2023, July 3) retrieved July 4, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-07-perseverance-doughnut-shaped-mars.html
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