Mars is a rocky planet occupied with strange-looking rocks. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently captured a new image of an avocado-shaped rock on Mars. The most powerful rover on Mars has been exploring Mars’ Jezero Crater in search of Alien life since it landed on the red planet on Feb. 18, 2021.
Since it commenced its operation, the rover has made some fascinating discoveries on the red planet. One of these discoveries is a pair of rocks, captured on September 8. It looks like a ripe avocado cut in half.
The image shows one of the rocks lying upside down in the foreground, while the other half looks like it has a distinct pit within its center. The rough surface of the rock even resembles the leathery texture of an avocado peel.
How James Webb Space Telescope Made the Fascinating Discovery of Avocado-Shaped Rock on Mars
Perseverance captured the recent image of an avocado-shaped rock on Mars using its Mastcam-Z camera. This powerful camera system includes a pair of cameras located high on the Perseverance’s head-like mast. While Perseverance was exploring Mars on its 907th Martian day or sol, it captured this strange-looking rock on Mars.
Note that one sol is about 24 hours and 40 minutes which is a bit longer than an Earth Day. Perseverance also gets a better view of Mars with the assistance of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity. This first Martian helicopter stands as a scout for the powerful rover.
The 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater that the Perseverance rover has been operating on was believed to host a massive lake and a river delta billions of years ago. The rover’s key goals are to specifically characterize the ancient environment of Mars and obtain samples that will be returned to Earth during future missions to Mars.
The recent image captured by the Perseverance has increased its collection of fun-shaped rocks on Mars. In June, it captured a donut-shaped rock on Mars with a hole within its center. Scientists believed that the donut-shaped rock might be remnants of a massive meteorite that landed on Mars.
In August, the rover also captured a shark-fin-looking outcrop with a crab-like boulder visible in the background. Scientists revealed that humans attribute these rocks’ shapes to the regular stuff we use on Earth because of the phenomenon known as pareidolia. Pareidolia generally describes the human brain’s ability to impose a familiar pattern on random visual data.
