Nasa rover discovers 'doughnut-shaped' rock on Mars surface

A Nasa rover exploring the surface of Mars has spotted an unusual rock resembling a large doughnut.

The Perseverance rover, which landed on the planet in 2021, captured the image on June 23 during one of its routine drives.

The Seti Institute, a non-profit organisation that searches for extraterrestrial intelligence, shared the picture on its Twitter account and said that it could be a meteorite.

“Nasa Perseverance took a picture using the SuperCam Remote Micro-Imager on June 23, 2023, of a doughnut-shaped rock off in the distance, which could be a large meteorite alongside smaller pieces,” the institute said.

The smaller pieces surrounding the rock appear to have the same texture and colour, suggesting they may have broken off on impact.

The picture shared by the Seti Institute was processed by Stuart Atkinson, a space enthusiast and author in the UK, who regularly processes such images taken by spacecraft.

“My first thought was ‘meteorite!’ because every Mars rover has found them, including Perseverance, and it just looked like an eroded, old, iron meteorite,” Mr Atkinson told The National.

Rovers and orbiters on Mars often find unusual rocks, including ones that have eroded over time.

Mr Atkinson said it was possible that it could just be a rock that was “hollowed out by wind, dust and even water over a very long period of time”.

“Mars is covered with rocks that look strange to us, because we're used to seeing rocks that are round and dull and boring,” he said.

“But Mars rocks have been exposed to millennia of erosion by wind, and dust, and water, so they can be sculpted into weird shapes.”

Perseverance is Nasa’s most expensive Mars mission to date, at a price of $2.7 billion.

It landed on the Red Planet’s surface to search for signs of ancient life.

It has been collecting rocks that the US Space Agency hopes to bring back to Earth later this decade through a joint return mission with the European Space Agency.

Last year, it collected two samples from an ancient river delta in the Jezero Crater, a site scientists believe was full of life billions of years ago.

The rocks may have organic matter, or building blocks of life, with a wide variety of compounds made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Perseverance had also carried the Ingenuity helicopter to the surface, which has become the first rotorcraft to fly on another planet.

It has carried out several flights at different altitudes and speed, helping to prove that powered, controlled flights on other planets are possible.