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"Silver Mountain": Perseverance Nabs Oldest Mars Sample Yet With Texture "Unlike Anything We've Seen"

The rover's 26th sample is a "one-of-a-kind treasure," NASA says.

Dr. Alfredo Carpineti headshot

Dr. Alfredo Carpineti

Dr. Alfredo Carpineti headshot

Dr. Alfredo Carpineti

Senior Staff Writer & Space Correspondent

Alfredo (he/him) has a PhD in Astrophysics on galaxy evolution and a Master's in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces.

Senior Staff Writer & Space Correspondent

EditedbyKaty Evans

Katy is Managing Editor at IFLScience where she oversees editorial content from News articles to Features, and even occasionally writes some.

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the camera is looking down a circular canister. at the end a silvery ragged pebble

This pebble, named "Silver Mountain" due to the region it was snagged from, is the oldest rock collected by Perseverance.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has just collected its 26th sample, named "Silver Mountain", and NASA has confirmed not only does it have curious textures "unlike anything we've seen before" but it's the oldest one yet.

Perseverance has been exploring a site called Blue Hill that has been described by the science team as of “immense scientific interest.” This is part of the Shallow Bay site and it is rich in a very peculiar type of pyroxene, an important mineral found in many igneous rocks. Pyroxene minerals are among the most common components of the Earth’s upper mantle. The rover has also been studying rocks with serpentine, a group of green minerals that might have formed from magma meeting water.  

The region has low-calcium pyroxene and might be linked to a much larger rock unit detectable from space. Unfortunately, Blue Hill is the only outcrop on Perseverance’s path which makes this exploration invaluable, so it grabbed a sample. 

"My 26th sample, known as 'Silver Mountain,' has textures unlike anything we've seen before," the official Perseverance account shared in a post on X.

 small Mars rock sample that looks silvery metallic and has an unevan bumpy texture inside a small tube that the Perseverance rover has sealed it in.
The sample, officially named "Silver Mountain".
Imagecredit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The rock, which measures 2.9 centimeters (1.1 inches) across, is unique beyond the pyroxene. It is the oldest sample yet collected by Perseverance. It is from the Nochian epoch, an age in Mars’s geological history that ranges from 3.7 to 4.1 billion years ago.

“Between our Noachian-aged pyroxene sample and the newfound focus on serpentine-bearing rocks, our journey through Jezero Crater has never been more exciting. Each step — each scan, each drive, each core sample — brings us closer to understanding Mars’ complex past,” Nicolas Randazzo, a Postdoctoral Scientist at the University of Alberta, wrote on the NASA blog.

The sample is among the many that are expected to be delivered to Earth with the Mars Sample Return. The mission has suffered several setbacks and it has now been delayed by NASA. Its future depends on the next NASA administrator. With the Trump administration's sustained attacks on Science in the US, it is unclear what that future might be.


ARTICLE POSTED IN

space-iconSpace and Physicsspace-iconAstronomy
  • tag
  • Mars,

  • Astronomy,

  • Perseverance,

  • Mars sample return

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