On social media, space conquest enthusiasts have dubbed it the “donut from Mars.” On June 23, the Perseverance rover, which has been exploring Mars for three years, captured the image of a rock with a hole in the center on the surface of the red planet. Seen the next day and rebroadcast On twitterThis rock is the subject of several hypotheses as to its origin.
But what is this? Paschal Lee, planetary scientist at the SETI Institutehe said it could be a meteorite, saying nearby rocks could also be other fragments.
“nothing special”
“I think it’s very unlikely,” Jim Rice, a research assistant at the University of Arizona’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, told CNN.
“In this region we see many rocks that have this kind of hollow interior,” added the specialist.
According to the scientist, another rock could have been embedded in the center of the donut-shaped one before bad weather eroded it, leaving a cavity. “From a scientific point of view, this is nothing special,” he concludes.
This is not the first time a “pie” has been seen in space. In 2014, it was NASA’s Opportunity rover that photographed a rock that looked like a “marmalade donut.”
Source: BFM TV
