NASA’s Perseverance Rover Finds Intriguing Martian Rock With ‘Earth-Like’ Signs of Life
The NASA Perseverance rover team reported an intriguing discovery on the Red Planet. The traveling on Mars rover found an interesting stone on its surface, its coloring reminiscent of a leopard. On Earth, microbes leave similar traces on the rock.
The arrowhead-shaped rock, dubbed Cheyava Falls, has been found to contain distinctive structures — veins and rimmed spots — that on Earth are associated with microbial life. The veins are calcium sulfate deposits that indicate the presence of running water there millions of years ago. Dozens of millimeter-sized spots found there are areas containing iron and phosphates — signs of microbial life on Earth and likely similar biological activity on Mars. The rover has taken a core of the intriguing rock as its 22nd sample, but whether those samples will ever be returned to Earth is a sore point for NASA.
In one scenario considered by the Perseverance science team, Cheyawa Falls was initially deposited as mud mixed with organic compounds that eventually cemented into the rock. Later, a second episode of fluid flow penetrated cracks in the rock, depositing minerals that created the large white veins of calcium sulfate seen today and caused the stains. Rutab.net
