NASA's Perseverance rover is reveling in a scientific bonanza on Mars after finding a diverse array of rocks that are providing eager scientists a glimpse into the planet's ancient history.
The Perseverance rover is currently exploring Mars hills, boulders and rocky outcrops along the rim of Jezero Crater, a dry, bowl-shaped depression north of the Martian equator that likely held a lake billions of years ago. Since reaching the crater's western rim in December of last year, the rover has focused its attention on the layered terrain of a tall slope called Witch Hazel Hill, which could hold clues to a period when Mars had a vastly different climate. In the past few months alone, the car-sized Perseverance has collected samples of five rocks, performed detailed analysis on seven others, and zapped an additional 83 with its laser for remote study — the robotic explorer's fastest pace of scientific data collection since it landed on the Red Planet four years ago, NASA says.
