Fluorescent ruby-like gems have been found on Mars for th...

What’s Happening

Not gonna lie, The Perseverance rover has found tiny crystals that seem to be rubies or sapphires inside pebbles on Mars, where they have never been seen before Space Fluorescent ruby-like gems have been found on Mars for the first time The Perseverance rover has found tiny crystals that seem to be rubies or sapphires inside pebbles on Mars, where they have never been seen before By Leah Crane 18 March 2026 Facebook / Meta Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email NASAs Perseverance rover is on the hunt for gems NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS The Perseverance rover has found precious stones inside Martian pebbles.

These gem grains are made of a substance called corundum, which is also known as ru depending on the traces of metals within it. Ann Ollila at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and her colleagues first spotted hints of corundum while using Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument to examine a rock called Hampden River. (we’re not making this up)

SuperCam has several different ways to test a material’s composition, using two different lasers to either burn off its surface or provoke luminescence, then two cameras to examine the resulting light.

The Details

In both tests, the results for Hampden River were nearly identical to the results from rubies measured in the lab, indicating the presence of tiny grains of corundum in the rock. As the rover drove along the rim of Jezero crater , it left Hampden River behind and the researchers found another pebble called Coffee Cove to check out.

Measurements of its make-up suggested corundum was present as well. It was the same for a third rock called Smiths Harbour.

Why This Matters

Ollila presented these findings at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas on 16 March. These gems have never been spotted on Mars before, and it is unlikely that they formed there in the same way that they do on Earth. “[Corundum] usually is associated, on Earth, with tectonism.

The scientific community tends to find developments like this significant.

Key Takeaways

• It’s a specific environment – you have to have a silica-weak environment, aluminium-rich,” dropped Ollila in her presentation.
• Mars doesnt have plate tectonics like Earth does, so finding corundum there was unexpected.

The Bottom Line

It’s a specific environment – you have to have a silica-weak environment, aluminium-rich,” dropped Ollila in her presentation. Mars doesnt have plate tectonics like Earth does, so finding corundum there was unexpected.

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