Scientists working on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission have discovered that the bedrock their six-wheeled explorer has been driving on since landing in February likely formed from red-hot magma.

NASA said the discovery has implications for understanding and accurately dating critical events in the history of Jezero Crater – as well as the rest of the planet.

The team also found that rocks in the crater have interacted with water multiple times over the eons and that some contain organic molecules.

These and other findings were presented today during a news briefing at the American Geophysical Union fall science meeting in New Orleans.

The US government department said that even before the rover touched down on Mars the science team had been curious about the origin of the rocks in the area.

“I was beginning to despair we would never find the answer,” said Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley of Caltech in Pasadena. “But then our PIXL instrument got a good look at the abraded patch of a rock from the area nicknamed ‘South Séítah,’ and it all became clear: The crystals within the rock provided the smoking gun.”

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