When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.NASA’s Perseverance mission spotted a possible large meteorite, called Phippsaksla, in September 2025. This image was taken on Sept. 19, or Sol 1629 of the Mars mission. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUNASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has found a possible meteorite on the surface of the Red Planet.Perseverance spotted an unusual “sculpted, high-standing” rock nestled among “low-lying, flat and fragmented surrounding rocks”, which got the attention of scientists right away, according to a blog post posted Nov. 13 on NASA’s website written by Candice Bedford, a research scientist at Purdue University. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory rover spotted Phippsaksla on Sept. 2, initially using the left Mastcam-Z camera high on the rover’s mast. Sept. 2 was Sol 1612 of the mission; a sol is a Martian day, which is slightly longer than Earth’s.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPerseverance next used its laser instrument, known as SuperCam, to show that the nearly three-foot-long (31 inches, or 81 centimeters) rock is made of iron and nickel, which matches what we know about the composition of cores of large asteroids in the solar system. If its origin is confirmed, this would be Perseverance’s first meteorite find since arriving at the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021.Asteroids are large space rocks that are typically made of leftover material from when the solar system was formed, 4.5 billion years ago, before larger bodies like planets and moons came together. Meteoroids — smaller space rocks — often are fragments of asteroids, and if one of meteoroids makes it to the surface of a planet or moon, these are called meteorites.The Perseverance rover team nicknames its science targets and sites for easy public identification. The suspected meteorite has been named “Phippsaksla”, a name taken from an area in Svalbard, Norway. The site where the rock was found, “Vernodden,” is also based on a location in Svalbard.Phippsaksla, a possible meteorite spotted on the surface of Mars, is visible in upper-left of the image. The other rocks are local to the environment and are much flatter. The image was taken by NASA’s Perseverance mission on Sept. 2, 2025, or Sol 1612 of the mission. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUWhile this is Perseverance’s first suspected meteorite find, it’s …
