Originally thought of as little more than a route clear of rover-slowing boulders, Neretva Vallis has provided a bounty of geologic options for the science
Perseverance captured this mosaic looking downstream of the dune-filled Neretva Vallis river channel on May 17. The channel fed Jezero Crater with fresh water billions of years ago. team.
Stitched together from 18 images taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover, this mosaic shows a boulder field on “Mount Washburn” on May 27. Intrigued by the diversity of textures and chemical composition in the light-toned boulder at center, the rover’s science team nicknamed the rock “Atoko Point.”To get to Bright Angel, the rover drove on a ridge along the Neretva Vallis river channel, which billions of years ago carried a large amount of the water that flowed into Jezero Crater.
The Perseverance science team was also eager to travel through the ancient river channel because they wanted to investigate ancient Martian river processes.With AutoNav helping guide the way on the channel floor, Perseverance covered the 656 feet to the first science stop in one sol. The target: “Mount Washburn,” a hill covered with intriguing boulders, some of a type never observed before on Mars.
Some 18 inches wide and 14 inches tall, the speckled, light-toned boulder stands out in a field of darker ones. Analysis by Perseverance’s SuperCam and Mastcam-Z instruments indicates that the rock is composed of the minerals pyroxene and feldspar. In terms of the size, shape, and arrangement of its mineral grains and crystals — and potentially its chemical composition — Atoko Point it is in a league of its own.
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