Surely it’s always interesting when a NASA rover finds something that doesn’t look like it belongs on the Martian surface. These samples can sometimes be the debris of the landing craft, or sometimes a piece of rock that came to Mars from another place. Here is another one of these rock fragments, captured by the Curiosity rover. Investigating what a strange, small, gray rock that differs from its surroundings is, officials think it’s most likely a meteorite.
Planetary geologist Catherine O’Connell-Cooper said in an update to the rover, “This is an unusual gray percolating rock that could be a remnant of material above Mount Sharp or a meteorite. “We’ve analyzed several meteorites over the last 10 years, but they’re not so abundant that we don’t get excited at the thought of a new one,” he said.
The term “floating rock” describes a rock from elsewhere. The rock in Curiosity’s image resembles previous meteorites previously found on Mars.
Mars has a long history of being bombarded by rocks from outer space. NASA’s InSight lander even captured the sounds of meteorite impacts during its mission.
Curiosity is currently exploring Gale Crater and climbing the slopes of the crater’s massive central mountain, Mount Sharp. One area of interest here is a geological formation called the Marker Band, which O’Connell-Copper previously described as “a thin, dark band of unknown origin.” The mysterious rock was found under the Signal Tape.
Meteorites on Mars are of particular interest to researchers. In 2016, NASA studied a meteorite called “Egg Rock” found by Curiosity. Egg Rock was an iron meteorite thought to be part of an asteroid’s core. Scientists are studying how exposure to the Martian environment affects iron meteorites and how this differs when compared to Earth’s counterparts.
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