NASA Curiosity rover discovers coral-like flower-shaped rocks on Mars
On July 24, the rover sent images of a wind-eroded rock about one inch wide, resembling a piece of a coral reef.
NASA has said that the rover has taken many images of rocks of this type. The space agency noted that when liquid water still existed on the planet, it carried dissolved minerals into the cracks of rocks. When the liquid dried, it deposited hardened minerals.
'This common process, seen extensively on Earth, has produced fantastic shapes on Mars, including a flower-shaped rock,' the agency said in a statement.
NASA noted that the 'unique shapes' seen today came to be after billions of years of sandblasting.
A uniquely shaped rock nicknamed 'Paposo' was also found on July 24. Similarly, another rock shaped like a flower was discovered in 2022.
According to NASA, the flower rock is believed to have formed as mineralizing liquids went through conduits in the rock.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory built the rover, which is leading its Mars mission.
After travelling for eight months and 352 million miles, the rover landed on Mars in 2012. NASA noted that it was the largest and most capable rover ever sent to Mars at the time.
The rover has explored as much as 22 miles of the planet and previously found chemical and mineral evidence of previous habitable environments.
According to NASA, the rover is continuing to gather samples and data from a time when Mars may have hosted microbial life.
The one-inch rock was found in the Gale Crater, an impact basin. In June, Curiosity took images of a geological structure called 'spiderwebs' because of its pattern of ridges, also indicating that Mars previously had water that has since hardened.
'The images and data being collected are already raising new questions about how the Martian surface was changing billions of years ago,' NASA said in a June statement.
'The Red Planet once had rivers, lakes, and possibly an ocean. Although scientists aren't sure why, its water eventually dried up and the planet transformed into the chilly desert it is today,' the agency added. 'Remarkably, the boxwork patterns show that even in the midst of this drying, water was still present underground, creating changes seen today.'
'Eons of sandblasting by Martian wind wore away the rock but not the minerals, revealing networks of resistant ridges within,' said the agency.
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
37 minutes ago
- USA Today
What is tonight's moon phase? Here's what to look for on Aug. 11
During such a busy stretch for stargazing, it can be hard to keep track of all that's happening in the solar system, including what we can see from our backyards. There are meteor showers, different moon phases, and planetary parades where four or five bright planets are visible to the naked eye at one time. On Monday night, Aug. 11, the moon will be in its waning gibbous phase at roughly 94% illuminated after this past weekend's full moon, according to NASA. The waning gibbous phase occurs when the lit-up part of the moon's face shrinks from about 100% to 50%. Waning refers to the lit up portion of the moon shrinking, while gibbous refers to its oval-to-round shape, according to Time and Date. There are eight lunar phases of the moon altogether, according to NASA. As the Earth orbits the sun, the sun's light beams onto Earth and the moon. This light illuminates half of the earth and reflects off the surface of the moon, creating moonlight. Depending on the position of the sun, the moon, and Earth, the moon can look fuller or like just a slice. These differences in appearance are called moon phases, and the cycle repeats about once a month. There are also names for each of the 12 full moons, including the most recent one, the Sturgeon Moon, named after a fish dating back millions of years ago. The annual Sturgeon moon peaked early Saturday morning, Aug. 9, at 3:54 a.m. ET. Here's a guide to the moon phases, what they look like, and what's to come over the next few months. When is the next full moon? The next full moon will be on Sunday, Sept. 7, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. It's called the Full Corn Moon, and it will begin to rise at 2:09 p.m. ET. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, the Full Corn Moon is called such because from late summer into early fall, that's when corn is harvested in the northern U.S. It's often called the Corn Moon, the Corn Maker Moon (Western Abenaki people), and the Corn Harvest Moon (Dakota people). What are the different moon phases and what do they mean? According to NASA, the eight phases of the moon are: Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists Just Found A Black Hole That Shouldn't Exist
Astronomers say they've discovered a new record holder for the most massive black hole merger to date. The merger is so big — roughly 255 solar masses — that it shouldn't technically be possible according to our current understanding of physics and black hole formation. Because of how big the merger is, astronomers estimate that each black hole had to be at least around 100 to 140 times the mass of the sun before the merger. These measurements would put the two black holes in what scientists call the "upper-mass gap," which is a range of masses where black holes aren't believed to form directly from the death of stars, as stars that big typically do not leave behind a stellar remnant. But the mystery doesn't stop at the size of these two black holes, Mark Hanna, a member of the LVK (LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA) Collaboration from Cardiff University said in a statement. Instead, the researchers note that the black holes are both spinning at 80 to 90% of their top speed, making them the highest spinning black holes that the LVK has ever recorded, too. Read more: What's Happening To Earth Right Now Can't Be Explained By Climate Models Finding The Record-Breaking Black Holes The massive black hole merger was found during the fourth run of the LVK network back in November of 2023. Designated GW231123, the merger is believed to be the most massive black hole binary that humanity has observed using gravitational waves. The LVK is a network of gravitation wave detectors made up of the LIGO, Virgo, and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA). It all began with LIGO's first detection of gravitational waves in 2015, and since then, the three detector systems have helped detect and catalogue thousands of black holes, neutron star mergers, and more. Some hope that gravitational waves could even let us see into black holes in the future. The details of this latest finding are currently available in a preprint study released on the arXiv server, but Mark Hannam says that "black holes this massive are forbidden through standard stellar evolution models," which has added some scrutiny to the discovery. Not only is understanding these black holes and how they formed and merged important to ratifying the discovery, but it could also be important to helping us round out our understanding of black hole formation as a whole. In fact, scientists have been making quite a few major discoveries as of late, especially when it comes to black holes. Not only have scientists discovered an entirely new class of black holes, recently, but the discovery of this merger could further upend our understanding of the cosmos even more. But that's one of the wonderful things about science. Our understanding and our view of the universe is constantly changing as we unlock new clues and details. The discovery of this massive black hole merger is just another clue that scientists will need to decode and work out. Read the original article on BGR. Solve the daily Crossword
Gizmodo
3 hours ago
- Gizmodo
Meteorite Crashes Into Georgia Home, Turns Out to Be 20 Million Years Older Than Earth
On a clear June day in Georgia, a blazing fireball suddenly fell out of the sky over the Atlanta metro area. The source of this spectacle was a 1-ton meteor that exploded in mid-air, sending a cherry tomato-sized fragment shooting through the roof of a McDonough home. Though no one knew it then, this space rock hailed from a time long before Earth had even formed. Using optical and electron microscopes, geologists at the University of Georgia analyzed 0.8 ounces (23 grams) of fragments recovered from the piece that ripped through the house on June 26. Their study revealed that this meteor was likely over 4.56 billion years old. That's 20 million years older than our planet. 'This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough, and in order to totally understand that, we actually have to examine what the rock is and determine what group of asteroids it belongs to,' Scott Harris, a University of Georgia geology researcher, said in a release. Harris and his colleagues extrapolated the meteor's age by classifying the recovered fragments. The composition of the debris indicated it came from a low-metal ordinary chondrite, a group of asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. Experts believe they stem from a breakup of a much larger asteroid that occurred about 470 million years ago, Harris explained. As these meteors orbit the Sun, they occasionally cross through Earth's orbit, he said. That's what allowed this interloper to pierce through Earth's atmosphere and ultimately an unsuspecting Georgian's home. According to the UGA release, researchers clocked the meteor entering the atmosphere at cosmic velocity, which is faster than the speed of sound. Indeed, people widely reported sonic booms along the ground track of the fireball, which traveled from northeast to southwest to the site of its crash landing, NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office states. The 3-foot-wide (1-meter-wide) meteor disintegrated—or blew up—27 miles above Wake Forest, Georgia, unleashing a blast of energy equivalent to roughly 20 tons of TNT, according to NASA's All Sky Fireball Network. When a pebble-sized fragment punched through a McDonough man's roof, Harris suspects he heard three things at once. 'One was the collision with his roof, one was a tiny cone of a sonic boom, and a third was it impacting the floor all in the same moment,' he said. 'There was enough energy when it hit the floor that it pulverized part of the material down to literal dust fragments. The resident told Harris he's still finding space dust around his living room, according to the release. The cherry tomato-sized meteorite, officially named the McDonough meteorite, is the 27th recovered in Georgia in history and only the sixth documented fall. 'This is something that used to be expected once every few decades and not multiple times within 20 years,' Harris said. 'Modern technology in addition to an attentive public is going to help us recover more and more meteorites.' The McDonough meteorite will remain at UGA for further analysis, and Harris plans to publish a paper on its composition, speed, and dynamics. These details will help scientists understand the potential threat of larger and more dangerous asteroid impacts. 'One day there will be an opportunity, and we never know when it's going to be, for something large to hit and create a catastrophic situation. If we can guard against that, we want to,' Harris said.
