The mystery jelly donut type rock, NASA's Opportunity Rover came across on Mars in January appears to be a small rock that happened to land in the views of cameras Fox News reported Friday.
"Once we moved Opportunity a short distance, after inspecting Pinnacle Island, we could see directly uphill an overturned rock that has the same unusual appearance," Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, and Deputy Principal Investigator for the Opportunity Rover told Fox News. "We drove over it. We can see the track. That's where Pinnacle Island came from," Arvidson told Fox News.
The Rover found the rock a couple feet in front of it while going across the red planet Discovery News reported.
NASA's second rover on the red planet had a very long journey on the red planet, landing last August to begin taking in its air and further investigating its certain aspects BBC News reported.
Astronauts determined the large amounts of manganese, and sulfur on the rock, also known as Pinnacle Island, were dissolved of water Fox News reported.
"This may have happened just beneath the surface relatively recently or it may have happened deeper below ground longer ago and then, by serendipity, erosion stripped away material above it and made it accessible to our wheels," Arvidson told Fox News.
The new findings include two kinds of argon gas in argon 36, and argon 38. Curiosity was able to find these through its Sample Analysis at Mars tool (SAM) a press release reported.
Rhawn Joseph, a neuroscientist-astrobiologist submitted documents for a lawsuit to United States District Court because he felt the agency was keeping information from the public about the rock.
Joseph wanted NASA to photograph different parts of the rock, and do a full examination, and then tell the public what they found The Sky Valley Chronicle reported.
