Perseverance has seen a lot of groundbreaking things since it landed on Mars in February 2021, and now we can add one more discovery to the list: a really weird rock.
On September 13, NASA’s rover continued its journey through the Jezero Crater, a region thought to have once been filled with water. As it slowly made its way through a flat, pebbly stretch of ground, its cameras spotted the strange rock. The stone is definitely a standout, with its white color contrasting sharply with Mars’ red dirt. What makes it even odder are the black stripes that cover much of its surface.
The NASA Perseverance team nicknamed the rock Freya Castle, after the famous summit in the Grand Canyon. Earth’s Freya Castle, however, is far larger than the one on Mars. The Freya Castle in Arizona measures 3,400 feet (1,000 meters) in height, while its Martian brethren is a mere eight inches (20 centimeters) across. Some people online gave it the more obvious nickname “zebra rock,” as NASA pointed out.
On Threads, people started tossing around theories. One person said the rock appeared to have undergone metamorphism, where high heat and pressure can change one type of rock into another. As it turns out, that theory might actually be correct. In a statement, NASA acknowledged that its knowledge of the rock’s composition is “limited,” but it appears the rock’s striking pattern could be igneous and/or metamorphic in origin.
As Freya Castle is completely different from the surrounding bedrock, NASA said it almost definitely got there by rolling downhill. Luckily, Perseverance is slowly climbing the crater rim, so finding other, similar stones is a possibility.
Unfortunately, it’s unlikely the zebra rock will ever be brought back to Earth for analysis. While NASA still hopes to one day collect Perseverance’s collected rock and soil samples, the zebra rock is too big for the robot to lug around. The Mars Sample Return mission has run into logistical problems. In April, NASA asked for help in revising the mission plan as the costs and complexity were deemed too high.
An oddly patterned, zebra-like rock may not sound like much to get excited about, especially given the magnitude of previous images Perseverance has sent back to Earth. In July, for instance, the rover found a rock patterned after a different African animal. The “leopard spots” in the rock could be evidence of microbial life at some point in Mars’ past. The zebra rock may pale compared to possible aliens, but it’s still pretty enough to generate its own fan art. Guess you could say Freya Castle has become a real rock star.
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