Mars donut! Perseverance rover spots holey Red Planet rock
NASA's Perseverance rover has spied a big, donut-shaped rock on Mars. It might be a meteorite, scientists say.
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NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has rolled up on a rocky donut that may have fallen from the sky.
On Friday (June 23), Perseverance snapped a photo of a big, dark stone with a hole in its center. The intriguing rock is surrounded by others of a similar hue, suggesting a common origin — one that may extend beyond Mars.
The donut rock "could be a large meteorite alongside smaller pieces," representatives of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California said via Twitter on Monday (June 26).
Such a find would not be unprecedented. Perseverance spotted a potential meteorite just a few weeks after its February 2021 touchdown, for example.
And the rover's older cousin, Curiosity, has discovered a number of space rocks on Mars since touching down in August 2012, including a metallic one nicknamed Cacao in February of this year.
Perseverance's discovery isn't the first pastry-like rock that a Mars robot has rolled up on, by the way. In January 2014, NASA's Opportunity rover spied a stone that's white on the outside and red on the inside, prompting mission team members to compare it to a jelly donut.
