Daijiworld Media Network – Washington

Washington, Aug 31: NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured striking images of a helmet-shaped rock on Mars, which scientists believe may unlock fresh clues about the Red Planet’s watery past.

The unusual formation, photographed on August 5, 2025, by the rover’s Mastcam-Z camera, stands out with its conical top and nodular surface. While its resemblance to a piece of ancient armour may simply be a trick of erosion, scientists stress that its true significance lies in its unusual composition.

Nicknamed “Horneflya” by the Perseverance team, the rock is composed almost entirely of tiny spherical formations known as spherules. On Earth, such spherules often form when groundwater seeps through sedimentary deposits. However, on Mars, researchers caution, they may have been created by very different — and as yet mysterious — geological processes.

“These formations are fascinating because they act as time capsules, recording environmental changes over billions of years,” said David Agle, spokesperson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Perseverance is currently exploring the northern rim of Jezero Crater, an ancient lakebed, where each unusual find brings scientists closer to piecing together the planet’s history and assessing its potential to have once supported life.

Over its mission, Perseverance has photographed several bizarre rock shapes, including doughnut-like meteorites and avocado-shaped stones. Such discoveries often trigger pareidolia — the human tendency to see familiar shapes in random objects, such as faces in clouds or helmets on rocks.

For planetary scientists, however, these curiosities are more than optical illusions. They are clues to Mars’ long and complex story of volcanic activity, chemical weathering, and mineral precipitation.