About 140 million miles away on the surface of Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently collected a four-billion-year-old specimen "unlike anything ever seen." Scientists hope the frosty-looking pebble will provide critical clues about the Red Planet, including past water activity and its potential habitability.
NASA scientists noted that the 1.1-inch (2.9-centimeter) rock sample is believed to be from Mars' Noachian-age, a period from 4.6 to 3.5 billion years ago when the Martian atmosphere was denser than it is today and the climate may have been warm enough to produce rain.
On the Perseverance X page, the NASA rover wrote, “Now that I've completed my climb out of Jezero Crater, I'm back to #SamplingMars! My 26th sample, known as ‘Silver Mountain,’ has textures unlike anything we've seen before. I've sealed the rock core in a sample tube so it can be analyzed in labs on Earth in the future.”
The name "Silver Mountain" is a nod to the Martian territory where it was extracted. It's a rocky outcrop along the rim of Jezero Crater, where Perseverance has been collecting rock samples in an area that could offer a "rare window into Mars' deep past," according to NASA.
The rocks in the current exploration zone are believed to have been brought to the surface by an ancient asteroid or comet impact and they likely represent some of the "oldest rocks found anywhere in the solar system," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote in a statement.
The oldest known rock on Earth is called "Acasta Gneiss" and it was found in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Scientists believe "Acasta Gneiss" is 4.03 billion years old, about the same age as "Silver Mountain."
Perseverance had previously identified rocks embedded with serpentine, a metamorphic rock that's formed when magnesium-rich magma reacts with water. That finding added further credibility to the theory that Mars' surface once contained lakes and rivers and could have sustained life.
It's not 100% clear when the Mars-sourced samples will be returned to Earth. NASA noted that it could be as soon as 2035 or as late at 2039, depending on budget and logistical restrictions.
Credits: Silver Mountain sample courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech. Perseverance Rover images via NASA/JPL-Caltech, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
