A Mars rover has made another discovery as it suddenly stepped into a "mysterious rock" six days ago.
Steve Squyres, principal investigator for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER) and also a Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, announced this new discovery on Thursday at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was there for an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Mars Rovers' Spirit and Opportunity in Mars.
Squyres discussed various scientific discoveries made by the rovers throughout the years as well as the recent discovery of suspected gypsum near the rim of Endeavour Crater in the Meridiani Planum region. Rover Opportunity has been studying this region since 2011. He also discussed the discovery of clay. With all these groundbreaking findings, Squyres and his team still expressed great excitement over the discovery of a mysterious rock.
Through photographs captured by the rover's panoramic camera, bare bedrock can be seen on sol 3528. When compared to sol 3540, the photographs show that a fist-sized rock, which they dubbed as "Pinnacle Island," had appeared.
Squyres described the rock to be the size of a jelly doughnut. "It was a total surprise, we were like 'wait a second, that wasn't there before, it can't be right. Oh my god! It wasn't there before!' We were absolutely startled," he told Discovery News.
There are two possible sources for this rock. First, this could be the result of some movements by the rover. Second, it was a result of a nearby meteorite impact event which caused the rock to land right in front of the rover. But, the latter reason is least likely to happen.
Squyres recognized that the possible cause of this mystery is the malfunctioning of Opportunity's front right steering actuator. He also explains that with the rover's limited motility, it may have displaced a piece of rock from the bedrock which resulted to Pinnacle Island.
The investigation of the mysterious rock is still under way and will take days for he and his team to conclude where Pinnacle Island came from.
