I picked up Curiosity vehicle NASA satellite imagery of what appears to be a coral-like flower in Gil Ali Crater Mars surfaceThe Martian sand micrograph was taken using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), a tool for imaging minerals, textures, and structures in rocks and soils at scales smaller than the diameter of a human hair.
According to the British newspaper, “Daily Mail”, the spacecraft team confirmed that it was an “advanced crystal mass”, which experts from NASA JPL suggest may have formed from minerals precipitated from water.
And while it looks big in pictures, it’s actually smaller than a penny, and consists of 3D crystal clusters made from a mixture of minerals.
NASA scientists say the formation could tell them more about the structure of Mars’ soil, and what the planet might once have looked like, including the flow of ancient water.
Curiosity studies Gale Crater, a dry lake bed 96 miles in diameter that includes Aeolis Mons, which rises 18,000 feet above the crater floor.
NASA originally chose the crater as the site for its rover, which landed on Mars in November 2011, due to evidence of water in the distant past.
Abigail Freeman, Curiosity Project Scientist, took to Twitter to explain the unusual formation, describing it as “tiny tiny structures formed by precipitating minerals from water”.
This isn’t the first time a rover has seen these formations, which are likely made of salts called sulfates, if these are the same versions previously discovered.
It is known as a starchy crystal mass, where the term diagenetic refers to the reconstitution of minerals, in this case most likely from the flow of water.