Mars 2020 Mission Team Members

Nov 09, 2026

Written by Tasha Coelho, Mastcam-Z Student Collaborator at Arizona State University

Nov. 1, 2026

Perseverance’s most recent abrasion “Pumbe” bears a striking resemblance to an earlier abrasion, “ Badger Peak .” That’s no coincidence. As previously reported , that rock had a hardness too high to core. However, the team felt strongly that it was worth the effort to add a gabbro, an igneous rock made mostly of calcium-rich plagioclase feldspar and pyroxene crystals, to Perseverance’s sample collection . In search of a new local gabbroic candidate to sample, Perseverance traveled about 100 meters (330 feet) to a different patch of light-toned rocks .…