The Mars Perseverance rover has been investigating the Jezero Crater and came across something that is not native to Mars at all. It is a meteorite that collided with the red planet. Though various rovers have found meteorites on Mars before, this is the first time NASA’s Perseverance rover has found one on its journey to look for signs of life on Mars that though it might be worth mentioning that the chance for life on Mars might not be as high as we hoped.
Perseverance has been exploring Mars since it landed in February 2021, and the rover has collected 30 out of an expected 38 samples during its mission.. The fact that it hadn’t yet found any meteorites within the crater was puzzling to scientists, so this find is an exciting one.
It is still being confirmed that what Perseverance found is a meteorite, but based on initial imaging and scans, it fits the bill. This is an important discovery, because finding and analyzing meteorites that have crashed on Mars helps us better understand our neighboring planet and the way meteorites behave on it.