14 DAY TRIAL // In a paper published in yesterday's issue of the journal Science, researchers argue that a 50-centimeters-tall (19.7 inches) rock that the Curiosity rover stumbled upon only a few weeks after landing on the Red Planet is surprisingly Earth-like.
The rock, which has been nicknamed Jake_M in honor of the late Jacob “Jake” Matijevic, MSL surface operations systems chief engineer, is shaped like a pyramid.
The rover found it as it was exploring Mars' Gale Crater.
At first, scientists assumed that it was a fine-grained basaltic igneous rock that formed when magma reached the Red Planet's surface and crystallized, and that its chemical makeup was fairly homogeneous.
However, further investigations revealed that, rather than being similar to most other Martian rocks that have thus far been analyzed by scientists, this one contained loads of sodium and potassium.
As the researchers explain, this means that Jake_M is strikingly similar to igneous rocks found on Earth both on ocean islands and in continental rift zones, EurekAlert reports.
“We realized right away that although nothing like it had ever been found on Mars, Jake_M is similar in composition to terrestrial mugearites, which although uncommon are very well known to igneous petrologists who study volcanic rocks on Earth,” says researcher Edward Stolper.
“In fact, if this rock were found on Earth, we would be hard pressed, based on its elemental composition, to tell it was not an Earth rock,” Edward Stolper goes on to argue.