NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity climbed last month to an overlook for surveying “Marathon Valley,” a science destination chosen because spectrometer observations from orbit indicate exposures of clay minerals. Near the overlook, it found blocky rocks so unlike any previously examined on Mars that the rover team has delayed other activities to provide time for a thorough investigation.
“We drove to the edge of a plateau to look down in the valley, and we found these big, dark-gray blocks along the ridgeline,” said Opportunity Project Scientist Matt Golombek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. “We checked one and found its composition is different from any ever measured before on Mars. So, whoa! Let’s study these more before moving on.” [More at link]