NASA’s Perseverance rover has successfully collected another greenish mineral rock sample on the Red Planet. Now scientists are hypothesizing about its origin.
A piece of olivine has appeared in the Perseverance collection. It is a rock-forming mineral, magnesium and iron orthosilicate, one of the most abundant minerals on Earth, constituting the main igneous rocks of our planet. Chrysolite is a precious variety of olivine.
And olivine is also considered a gem. From Greek “olivine” means “golden stone”. True, a rich green color is rare for him, basically his color is more reminiscent of olive.
“Another piece of Mars to take with you. My latest sample comes from a rock filled with the greenish mineral olivine, and my research team has some ideas on how it got there. Hypotheses fly!” – said on Twitter on behalf of the rover.
The Perseverance rover collects rock samples from Mars and places them in test tubes for storage. It is quite possible that in the future, scientists on Earth will be able to obtain a rock rich in olivine.
NASA is developing a mission to deliver samples from a rover to Earth for study in the early 2030s.
