NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered one other meteorite on Mars.
The space rock is about 1 foot (0.3 meters) broad and consists primarily of iron and nickel, Curiosity group members introduced by way of Twitter on Thursday (Feb. 2). And the meteorite has a reputation.
“We’re calling it ‘Cacao,'” the Curiosity group wrote in the Twitter post (opens in new tab), which features a picture of the rock.
Associated: 15 stunning Mars photos by NASA’s Curiosity rover
The car-sized Curiosity landed inside Mars‘ 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater in August 2012, on a quest to find out if the realm may have supported Earth-like life way back.
The robotic’s work over the previous decade has answered that query within the affirmative, exhibiting that Gale hosted a doubtlessly liveable lake-and-stream system within the historical previous. What’s extra, this watershed doubtless persisted for millions of years at a stretch, probably permitting time for the rise of Martian microbes.
Curiosity shouldn’t be a life-hunting mission, so it is not in search of indicators of those microbes, in the event that they ever existed. However Curiosity’s cousin Perseverance, which landed inside a unique Mars crater in February 2021, is conducting a life search, and in addition gathering dozens of samples for future return to Earth.
Since September 2014, Curiosity has been climbing the flanks of Mount Sharp, an enormous massif that rises about 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the sky from Gale’s heart.
The rover just lately notched an enormous milestone on this trek, reaching sulfate-rich deposits that fashioned in comparatively dry situations. Curiosity’s observations of those rocks may assist scientists higher perceive when and the way Gale Crater, and the Pink Planet at giant, transitioned from a comparatively heat and moist place to the frigid desert it’s at this time, mission group members have stated.
Curiosity has pushed 18.31 miles (29.47 km) on Mars to this point, according to its mission page (opens in new tab). The rover has stumbled throughout a number of different meteorites throughout this epic off-planet journey, because the rover group famous in a number of different photo-featuring tweets on Thursday.
“Here is one other meteorite I discovered in 2016. It is referred to as ‘Egg Rock,’ aka the golf ball,” one Thursday Twitter post reads (opens in new tab).
“And whereas my group calls this 7-foot-long meteorite ‘Lebanon,’ I name it THE BEAST,” another Thursday tweet states (opens in new tab).
Curiosity discovered Lebanon, or The Beast, in Might 2014, although NASA did not publicize photographs of the large rock till July of that yr. The Beast and two close by stones have been the primary meteorites that Curiosity discovered on the Pink Planet.
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e book concerning the seek for alien life. Comply with him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
