Freya Castle: NASA Investigates Rock "Unlike Any Seen On Mars Before"

From mysteriouspurple - coated rocksto formation that look a bit like adoorway , our trusty Martian golem crony have made some cool and sometimes strange finding over the years .

Every now and then , they capture an image of a rock that looks completely out of position in the Martian landscape . This bump on September 13 , when NASA ’s Perseverance bird of passage spot a specially unusual rock lie on top of otherwise mundane Martian terrain .

The rock ‘n’ roll drew attending online , probable because of how strange it look compare to its environment .

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The rock has also caught the attention of the Perseverance team , of course , who called it " unlike any seen on Mars before " . Perseverance is presently manoeuvre to Dox Castle , a part of the Jezero Crater that could have been created when the asteroid encroachment that created the crater sent rocks flying .

While slowly climbing the slopes to the crater ’s brim sooner this month , team member spotted an unusual grain in the distance and decided to maintain it using the Mastcam - Z photographic camera . A few days afterward , after Perseverance had already left the area , NASA received the data and realized how unknown the rough 20 - centimeter ( 8 - inch ) rock was .

" The scientific discipline squad think that this John Rock has a grain unlike any examine in Jezero Crater before , and perhaps all of Mars , " Perseverance squad member and doctorial student at Purdue University , Athanasios Klidaras , explained in aNASA web log .

" Our knowledge of its chemical composing is circumscribed , but early interpretations are that igneous and/or metamorphic processes could have created its stripe . "

While people have conversationally name it the " zebra rock " , the NASA squad has dubbed it " Freya Castle " . The squad think that the John Rock has probably get in at its current position from elsewhere given how different it is from the surrounding rock , perhaps having rolled downhill . This is honest news , as the rover is headed uphill decently now , so perhaps it will bump more similar rock music in the coming week .