Weird Green Rock on Mars

A confession: When I saw that jazzy, nearly turquoise rock that Perseverance recently photographed ..... it didn’t fit into my view of Mars at all .... totally the wrong color .... so I got overly excited.

Well ...... I did some research among the photographs sent home by earlier rovers. The truth is, there seem to be lots of green rocks on Mars, including the bedrock of the planet, small, un-naturally round, balls, green boulders, etc. So, it is not shockingly unusual to see another green thing on Mars. Here is my evidence:

Greenish boulders and hunks of stone. Some shattered-looking like they broke off bedrock.

Greenish bedrock which also has large holes eroded into it like the newly discovered specimen. Also note in the upper right, evidence that the earlier rover fired a volley of eight lasers into the “soil” nearby to test its composition. Remember it fired eight times on the new discovery, too. Maybe that’s the standard volley.

This green sphere is remarkable looking until you read the report that says these very small balls are typical and scattered everywhere. Geologists call them “blueberries” (although they look green to me) and they are the expected product of ancient fresh water river physics and chemistry.
So, my bad, I failed to notice that the red planet has quite a bit of green rock.

However, the new one is still a spectacular example. Look for the volley of eight laser hits half way up on the right side.