A silvery, pale boulder in a field of darker rocks on Mars has intrigued NASA scientists.
The Perseverance rover took the snapshot at Mars' Mount Washburn, as it travelled along an ancient, long-dry riverbed.
The team on Earth nicknamed the standout boulder Atoko Point, after a location in the US Grand Canyon.
"In terms of the size, shape, and arrangement of its mineral grains and crystals – and potentially its chemical composition – Atoko Point is different from any of the rocks the rover has encountered before," NASA said online.
Some Perseverance scientists suggested the minerals that made up Atoko Point were produced in a sub-surface body of magma that is possibly exposed now on the crater rim.
Others suggested the boulder, which stands about 45cm wide and 35cm tall, had been transported to its current location by swift Martian waters aeons ago.
NASA's Perseverance Rover captured this image of a gigantic dust devil while prowling the surface of Mars.
The Martian dust devil is a lot bigger than its Earth-bound equivalent - in this case, the storm was estimated to be 60 metres wide and up to 2km high - about five times the height of the Empire State Building.
The storm was about 4km aware from the rover at this point, and moving at about 19km/hr.
Investigating the site of an ancient river delta, the Perseverance rover has collected some of the most important samples yet on its mission to determine if life ever existed on Mars, according to NASA scientists.
A few of the recently collected samples include organic matter, indicating that Jezero Crater, which likely once held a lake and the delta that emptied into it, had potentially habitable environments 3.5 billion years ago.
"The rocks that we have been investigating on the delta have the highest concentration of organic matter that we have yet found on the mission," said Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
The site of the delta makes Jezero Crater, which spans 28 miles (45 kilometers), of particularly high interest to NASA scientists.
The fan-shaped geological feature, once present where a river converged with a lake, preserves layers of Martian history in sedimentary rock, which formed when particles fused together in this formerly water-filled environment.
The rover investigated the crater floor and found evidence of igneous, or volcanic, rock.
During its second campaign to study the delta over the past five months, Perseverance has found rich sedimentary rock layers that add more to the story of Mars' ancient climate and environment.
Organic molecules are of interest on Mars because they represent the building blocks of life, such as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, as well as nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur.
Not all organic molecules require life to form because some can be created through chemical processes.
NASA has released more photos of the Perseverance rover's mission on Mars.
The rover touched down on the red planet on February 18, 2021, and has been exploring ever since.
The colourised photos show a never-before-seen view of our near neighbour.
Perseverance is collecting samples and looking for evidence of ancient microbial life.
NASA is hoping to explore the possibility of Mars' eventual habitability by humans.
Perseverance's tasks include "testing a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, identifying other resources (such as subsurface water), improving landing techniques, and characterizing weather, dust, and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on Mars", according to its mission site.
It is set to remain on Mars for at least one Martian year (about 687 terran days).
Just days after NASA's Perseverance rover gently dropped the Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars, the robot companions took a selfie together on Tuesday and beamed it back to Earth.
The rover used its robotic arm, which has a camera mounted on the end, to capture the image. The helicopter can be seen 4 metres away on the left side of the rover.
The board is set. The pieces are almost in motion.
This week NASA provided the first shot of Ingenuity, a miniature Mars helicopter.
Here it's seen stowed sideways, folded up and locked in place.
The helicopter is nearly ready to make history with the first powered flight on another planet.
NASA's Perseverance rover has spotted a dust devil on Mars' surface - a strong but short-lived whirlwind.
Perseverance captured the dust devil moving right to left, creating whirlwinds of dust in its path.
The SUV-sized spacecraft made history last month when it successfully landed on the Red Planet following a seven-month orbit through space and nerve-wracking seven-minute landing.
Scientists believe Mars may have been a hospitable environment for life some 3.5 million years ago, when it's atmosphere was warmer and wetter.