Over the years, our dependable Martian robot friends have discovered some intriguing and occasionally bizarre things, such as mysterious purple-coated rocks and structures that somewhat resemble a doorway.
They occasionally photograph a rock that appears entirely out of place in the Martian landscape. This occurred on Friday when the Mars Perseverance rover captured numerous pictures of a sizable rock with a donut-like shape.
It’s likely that the rock’s appearance against the Martian terrain is caused by the fact that it isn’t genuinely from Mars. The rock may be “a large meteorite along with smaller pieces,” according to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute.
Since Mars is the Solar System’s nearest planet to the asteroid belt, it frequently receives damage from wayward asteroids. The rocks frequently pass through the atmosphere without fracturing too much because it is only 1% as thick as Earth’s atmosphere. Even the sound of a meteoroid crashing onto the planet has been recorded by NASA.
To be certain that the doughnut rock is a meteorite or it is simply a rock that has aged unusually, more research is necessary. The fact that meteorites and prospective meteorites have already been discovered by Mars rovers does not lessen the excitement of discovering an alien rock on an alien planet.
A little, appetizing-looking rock that emerged in front of the Opportunity rover in an area that had been photographed and shown to contain no such rock raised yet another donut-rock enigma in 2014. Instead of verifying the presence of a Martian Homer Simpson, NASA concluded that the pebble had probably been thrown out of the rover’s wheels.
