Mars's mystery: Perseverance rover uncovers thousands of unusual white rocks

Scientists are investigating the unusual and mysterious large rocks found on the Red Planet. The Perseverance rover, which has been observing the Jezero crater on the surface of Mars since 2021, spotted thousands of objects.

These are very unusual rocks, and we're trying to figure out what's going on, says Candice Bedford of Purdue University, quoted by Space.com and a Mars 2020 scientific team member. We are talking about thousands of white rocks strangely littering the Martian surface. Perseverance has recently provided scientists with photos of over 4,000 bright rocks—each the size of a small stone.

Some of the rocks visible in the photos, which scientists call "floats", are smooth, and there are etchings on their surface. Others appear to be a combination of many layers of different materials. From the research conducted so far, it appears that the "floats" are dehydrated - moreover, they lack minerals, including iron, calcium, sodium, and magnesium.

The team of scientists emphasizes that they are particularly interested in the origin of the rocks discovered in the Jezero crater. This is because further research involving "floats" may help scientists gain valuable knowledge about the Red Planet's past. It also means that the team may be able to determine when exactly water flooded Jezero, which today is a dried-up area on the surface of Mars.

While scientists have no idea where the thousands of white rocks in the area they are studying came from, they suggest that the "floats" were "heated and transformed due to the influence of lava or asteroid impacts elsewhere on Mars". Subsequently, the objects were dropped to the bottom of the crater - notes Bedford. Regardless of how exactly the process occurred, the scientist and her team suspect that the appearance of the white rocks took place "relatively recently, considering the geological history of the Jezero crater".

Candice Bedford adds that the Perseverance rover began another mission this spring. Its goal is to reach the edge of the aforementioned crater and "see" with long-range cameras more white rocks scattered around Jezero. However, the mysterious rocks are not the only reason scientists continue the mission on Mars. They want to go further - to places where, in their opinion, there is "unique geology that has not yet been discovered at the bottom of the crater". This includes, among other things, rocks formed even before the crater, which may contain records concerning the formation of Mars's crust and its climate. The undiscovered rocks may contain evidence of biosignatures, i.e., traces of life.