On the plains of Jezero, the secrets of Mars' past await us! Follow for the latest news, updates, pretty pics, and community discussion on NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's most ambitious mission to Mars!
One for the geologists ๐ Sol 1457 MastCam-Z
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Question(s) for Paul Hammond:
Do you keep any rock specimens, personally? Would you find vesicular basalt to be charismatic enough to earn a place as one of your pet rocks? I see that you like these "shiny" or "polished" cobbles we've been seeing all mission long... I think... but we don't often analyze them in this much detail.
I used to own a small collection of pebbles that I'd gathered on my travels, each triggered fond memories of places visited. But all were left at my old place when I moved. For whatever reason I failed to start a new collection since moving. You're right, I am drawn to the polished cobbles, some of them remind me of desert varnish. However if I could only pick one to place on my desk, then it would have be one of the small iron meteorites that have been spotted by the rovers. There are some nice SuperCam's of this target, but my poor processing skills of those raw images don't add any value
Do we have any places on earth with similar looking terrain. It always trips me out to see Mars photos. Its so familiar but alien at the same time.
There are a few places that come close (Desert areas), but no exact matches. Here are a few that come close
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-places-where-you-can-visit-mars-on-earth