The Mars Trail rover found a rock of unknown origin, and on the right side of this photo you can see the rover using a laser to scorch the rock.
Is it a meteorite? Is it a piece of local bedrock that fell off? NASA’s Perseverance rover probed a mysterious rock with a laser in March.
Meteorites are common on Mars, and rovers always see quite a few as they drive along the road. NASA recently had Perseverance stop by while waiting for the helicopter to be ready to also probe a rock that appears to be similar to meteorites seen elsewhere on Mars.
In an April 1 tweet in Trailblazer’s voice, NASA did not draw any conclusions about the rock’s origin, saying only, “While waiting for the helicopter to be ready, I couldn’t help but look around for nearby rocks. My scientific team has a lot of speculation about this strange rock.”
The rock was about 15 centimeters long. The Trailblazer also allowed people to look closely at the photos and “see the marks of being scorched by the probe laser.” Trailblazer is equipped with a laser exploration instrument for probing the Martian terrain to collect data.
NASA released the “zipping” sound recorded when the laser was used to illuminate the rock, and described how “the change in sound intensity reflects information about the physical structure of the object being probed, such as its hardness and the presence of weathered layers.”
Researchers have suggested several possibilities for the origin of the rock, with no definitive results yet.
The Trailblazer is considered a very experienced connoisseur when it comes to detecting meteorites. In its toolbox is a “Sherloc” instrument called Sherlock Holmes, which happens to be “Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organic and Chemical Substances” (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence). Environments with Raman& Luminescence for Organics& Chemicals). Several meteorites are pre-prepared as reference samples to aid in instrument calibration.
Among them is a small piece of Martian rock brought to Mars from Earth – it was a “meteorite” when it was on Earth, and NASA has returned it to its home.
Recently, Trailblazer’s main job was to take a helicopter out of the “suitcase” that was originally folded to bring it and start assembling it to fly out to check out Mars. This work is very exciting, this is the first human-made machine to fly on a planet other than Earth.
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