Nasa’s Perseverance Mars rover has spotted a bizarre helmet-shaped rock, shedding more light on how winds shape the Red Planet’s surface even today.
The unusual “witch hat” or “helmet-shaped” rock composed entirely of smaller spherules drew attention online.
“This hat-shaped rock is composed of spherules. This rock’s target name is Horneflya, and it’s distinctive less because of its hat shape and more because it’s made almost entirely of spherules,” David Agle, spokesperson for the Nasa Perseverance team, told Space.com.
The pioneering Nasa rover is currently studying sand ripples on Mars to better understand how winds currently sculpt the Red Planet’s surface.
While the rover has so far been focused on unravelling processes in Mars’ distant past that are recorded in ancient rocks, researchers have yet to further explore the science behind the modern Martian environment.
For instance, the Perseverance rover’s predecessor, Curiosity, captured iconic images of the active sand dune at “Namib Dune” on the floor of the Martian Gale crater.
But smaller megaripples as well as inactive dusty ones are also common across the surface of Mars.
Recently, the rover explored a site called “Kerrlaguna,” where the steep slopes give way to a field of megaripples.
These are large windblown sand formations up to 1m (3ft) tall.
After examining clay and olivine-rich rocks at a site named “Westport”, the rover began moving South.
But as it attempted to climb toward a rock outcrop called “Midtoya”, the steep hill and its rubble-filled ground made progress nearly impossible, Nasa said.
The Perseverance team then redirected the rover to smoother terrain where it spotted spherule-rich rocks like Horneflya, which likely rolled down from the Midtoya site.
All these features recently spotted by Perseverance can help better understand the role played by wind and water on the modern Martian surface, scientists say.
The Nasa rover uses its SuperCam, Mastcam-Z, and MEDA science instruments to characterise these environments, the size and chemistry of the sand grains and salty crusts that may have developed over time.
These observations could help document and prepare terrain maps when future astronauts explore the Red Planet and potentially help them find resources within Martian soils to help them survive, researchers say.
Scientists hope analysis of data collected from “Kerrlaguna” can provide a practice run for a more comprehensive campaign to a larger field of Martian rocks at “Lac de Charmes”, which lies further along the rover’s planned route.