NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered that Jezero Crater’s floor is made up of igneous rocks that have actually interacted with water.
During its initial year delving into Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has generated the unexpected discovery of volcanic rocks on the Jezero Crater’s floor, revealing the existence of historical water, findings that might just lead researchers to figure out if life on the red planet was ever habitable.
These volcanic rocks identified by Nasa’s Perseverance Mars rover on the floor of the Red Planet’s 3.7-billion-year-old Jezero Crater are offering a tempting clue to how the Martian climate changed.
Scientists received a shock when NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover commenced examining rocks on the floor of Jezero Crater in spring of 2021: Because the crater held a lake billions of years earlier, they had expected to find sedimentary rock, that would have formed when sand and mud settled in a once-watery setting. In fact, they found out the floor was made from two varieties of igneous rock, one that formed very deep underground from magma, the other from volcanic activity at the surface.
Igneous rocks are great timekeepers: Crystals inside them record details relating to the particular moment they formed.
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