Nasa rover spots strange Martian rock that looks like ‘chocolate cake’

Rock formation resembles layered cake that has icing picked off

Nasa’s Curiosity rover has spotted a strange rock formation on Mars that looks like a multilayered chocolate cake.

The rover team faced a technical challenge to find a safe area on the Red Planet to deploy the space vehicle’s APXS spectrometer and MAHLI camera instruments.

They eventually managed to place the APXS equipment on top of a prominent rock to study its target Martian area, including layered rocks named “Hale Telescope” after the famous astronomical landmark in San Diego, California.

The rover imaged and conducted analyses of another target a little further from the Hale Telescope area called “Fan Palm”.

In all, the Curiosity rover completed a drive of some 23 meters in preparation for the study plan lasting three Martian days.

Image taken by Curiosity rover's Front Hazard Avoidance Camera on Mars (NASA/JPL Caltech)

Curiosity now has its instruments as well as the APXS spectrometer set on the “cakey target”, planetary scientist Scott Van Bommel from Washington University said in a Nasa blog post.

“Perhaps it was because of Easter last weekend, perhaps I needed an early lunch,” Dr VanBommel commented, “whatever the cause, I could not shake the visual parallels between the rocks in our workspace as captured in this blog’s image and a many-layered cake such as a Prinzregententorte.”

The weathering patterns on the rock formation make it look like a “layered cake that little fingers have picked the icing off,” researchers say.

The spacecraft has undergone a new AI software upgrade, giving it greater autonomy to choose its next target, Nasa noted.

An upgraded version of the Curiosity’s AEGIS instrument would enable the rover to autonomously determine the target and analyse it with its chemical analysis equipment.

The rover’s encounter with the strange rock formation occurred just days after it was captured driving across the Red Planet for the first time from orbit.

An image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed Curiosity as a dark speck at the front of a trail of rover tracks about 320m long.

Since its landing at the Martian Gale Crater in August 2012, Curiosity has uncovered many details about the Red Planet’s ancient habitability, helping find if it ever had the conditions to support microbial life.

Its mobile science lab analyses rocks, soil and the Martian atmosphere, looking for chemical signatures of life.

It has made several landmark discoveries, including evidence of ancient riverbeds, organic molecules, and past habitable environments.

The rover has also helped determine the current Martian climate and radiation levels which could help future astronauts prepare for exploration.