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On 24.02.2023 at 10:00 a.m.
Modified on 24.02.2023 at 22:00
Ten years following landing on Mars, NASA’s intrepid spacecraft continues its exploration of the Red Planet. On January 28, during its 3,725th day on Mars, the SUV-sized rover discovered a new meteorite with surprising characteristics.
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Could Mars have harbored ancient life? This is the question NASA’s Curiosity rover has been trying to answer since it landed on the Red Planet on August 6, 2012, following seven months of space travel. Since then, he has traveled nearly 29 kilometers and climbed 625 meters exploring Gale Crater and the foothills of Mount Sharp, the page details. Mars Exploration from NASA. Despite its advanced age, Curiosity continues to send us hundreds of photos of the sky of the red planet and its surface. While scanning a huge mountain, the JPL rover (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) accidentally stumbled upon a new Martian iron-nickel meteorite nicknamed “Cacao”, the US space agency announced on February 2, 2023.
An extremely rare metallic meteorite
While scanning the region of Mount Sharp, the most famous of the Martian mountains located in the center of the Gale crater, Curiosity came across a meteorite estimated to be regarding 30 centimeters in diameter. A panorama made up of 19 individual images (with a 100mm focal lens) was then assembled by the scientists following being sent to Earth. “Color has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would perceive them on Earth“, explains a press release.
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For geologists, there is no shadow of a doubt: its smooth, rounded shape is formal proof that this rock has passed through an atmosphere, and that it is therefore a meteorite. The examination of this solid object by the ChemCam – an instrument for analyzing rocks and soils on board the rover – made it possible to define that it was composed of iron and nickel. This corresponds to the rarest type of meteorite: regarding 6% of the falls observed, indicates our colleagues from Sciences and Life.
A testimony to the formation of the solar system
This is not the first time that the rover has spotted an unusual rock during its exploration of Mars. In 2016, Curiosity had discovered a meteorite the size of a golf ball (“Egg Rock”) and of unknown nature. A chemical analysis had revealed high levels of iron, nickel and phosphorus. MSL mission geologists are now wondering how long Cacao has been on Mars. “Most nickel iron meteorites come from the cores of shattered planetesimals that formed in the early solar system“, writes the scientific magazine further.
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These future planets were made of an alloy of iron and nickel, much like the Earth. While Cacao’s discovery is a bonus for scientists, Curiosity’s main task is to find clues to environmental conditions that might have been favorable for life on Mars. This is obviously done, since the robot has succeeded in determining that liquid water as well as the chemical components and nutrients necessary to sustain life have been present for at least tens of millions of years in the Gale crater. , which once housed a lake.
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