A Stranger in Our Midst?

November 13, 2025

3

Perseverance Encounters a Doable Meteorite

A color photo from the Martian surface shows a close-up of a large tan and pale orange rock pockmarked with numerous large holes, which are mostly filled with dark, rust-colored sand. In the background, pale orange, very rocky terrain is visible in the top third of the image.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this close-up view exhibiting the cavernous weathering texture of an unusually formed rock, “Phippsaksla,” focused for investigation primarily based on its look that differed from the low-lying surrounding rocks. Examine confirmed that it’s excessive in iron and nickel content material, suggesting that it could be a meteorite. Perseverance captured the picture utilizing its Left Mastcam-Z digicam, considered one of a pair of cameras situated excessive on the rover’s mast, on Sept. 19, 2025 — Sol 1629, or Martian day 1,629 of the Mars 2020 mission — on the native imply photo voltaic time of 12:11:25.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Written by Candice Bedford, Analysis Scientist at Purdue College

Oct. 1, 2025

Throughout the rover’s current investigation of the bedrock at “Vernodden,” Perseverance encountered an unusually formed rock about 80 centimeters throughout (about 31 inches) known as “Phippsaksla.” This rock was recognized as a goal of curiosity primarily based on its sculpted, high-standing look that differed from that of the low-lying, flat and fragmented surrounding rocks. Final week, Perseverance focused Phippsaksla with the SuperCam instrument revealing that it’s excessive in iron and nickel. This factor mixture is often related to iron-nickel meteorites shaped within the core of enormous asteroids, suggesting that this rock shaped elsewhere within the photo voltaic system.

A color photo from the Martian surface shows pale orange, very rocky terrain in the foreground, with a large, pockmarked rock in the background at upper left.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this picture of the unusually formed rock, “Phippsaksla,” within the distance at higher left, which is suspected to be a meteorite due to its excessive iron and nickel content material. Perseverance captured the picture utilizing its Left Mastcam-Z digicam, considered one of a pair of cameras situated excessive on the rover’s mast, on Sept. 2, 2025 — Sol 1612, or Martian day 1,612 of the Mars 2020 mission — on the native imply photo voltaic time of 12:45:41.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

This isn’t the primary time a rover has encountered an unique rock on Mars. The Curiosity rover has recognized many iron-nickel meteorites throughout its traverse in Gale crater together with the 1-meter large (about 39 inches) “Lebanon” meteorite again in 2014 and the “Cacao” meteorite noticed in 2023. Each Mars Exploration Rovers, Alternative and Spirit, additionally discovered iron-nickel meteorites throughout their missions. As such, it has been considerably sudden that Perseverance had not seen iron-nickel meteorites inside Jezero crater, significantly given its comparable age to Gale crater and variety of smaller influence craters suggesting that meteorites did fall on the crater ground, delta, and crater rim all through time. Now, on the surface of the crater, atop bedrock identified to have shaped from influence processes up to now, Perseverance has doubtlessly discovered one. As a result of unique composition of this rock, extra investigation by the workforce must be completed to verify its standing as a meteorite. But when this rock is deemed to be a meteorite Perseverance can in the end add itself to the record of Mars rovers who’ve investigated the fragments of rocky guests to Mars.

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A Stranger in Our Midst?

Perseverance Encounters a Doable Meteorite

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