Space & Astronomy

NASA discovers out-of-place rock on the surface of Mars

By T.K. Randall
November 21, 2025 ·  7 comments

Image Credit: Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech We've heard a lot of stories over the years of anomalous objects on the surface of the Red Planet, mostly due to pareidolic formations that happen to resemble recognizable things.

This rock, however, is a bit different because it isn't its shape that makes it unusual - it's the fact that it doesn't seem to actually be a piece of Mars at all.

Discovered inside Jezero crater, the rock - which has been nicknamed Phippsaksla - quickly became a target for further investigation using Perseverance's SuperCam instrument.

It turned out that its nickel and iron content was way higher than that typically seen in other Mars rocks.That leaves one likely explanation - this rock isn't actually from Mars at all.

In other words - it arrived on the Red Planet from somewhere else in the solar system.

"It is quite likely this one on Mars came from the asteroid belt," the University of Birmingham's Dr Gareth Dorrian told Mail Online.

"These particular meteorites are quite resistant to chemical weathering and are more likely to survive the fiery fall through a planetary atmosphere."

It just goes to show that, even on Mars, it's possible to find objects from elsewhere in space.

Source: Mail Online | Comments (7)

Tags: Mars