Mars hasn't given us proof of life, but it has handed scientists a new kind of mystery.
On the western edge of Jezero Crater, NASA's Perseverance rover has been exploring Neretva Vallis, a river-carved valley that once fed a vast Martian lake. There, in an outcrop of ancient mudstone called the Bright Angel formation, the rover found one of its most intriguing targets yet: an arrowhead-shaped rock nicknamed Cheyava Falls, flecked with tiny black "poppy seeds" and ringed "leopard spots."
