Satellite tv for pc observations had proven alternating stripes of light-colored and dark-colored rock on this space. In late March, Perseverance excavated one of many light-colored formations and picked up a pattern. Within the course of it found the unusual rock—which has been named “St. Paul’s Bay.”
In keeping with the Perseverance staff, St. Paul’s Bay is a “float” rock—that’s, a rock that ought to not exist at this location. However what created this rock formation on Mars, and the way it got here to be positioned on this area, stays unknown. This rock seems to be made up of smaller, spherical, darkish grey stones every a number of hundred millimeters in dimension. The shapes of those small spherical stones fluctuate: Some are oval-shaped, some have sharp edges, and a few have small holes in them.
It’s doable that these spherules are concretions—formations created by groundwater shifting by way of pores in a rock, which means that there might need as soon as been considerable liquid water on Mars. Nevertheless, on Earth these spherules are additionally created when molten rock cools quickly, for instance after a volcanic eruption. The Perseverance science staff is investigating the origin of the small spherical stones that make up St. Paul’s Bay. It’s doable that they’re derived from a dark-colored stripe of rock formation noticed close by.
