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NASA Mars Rover Visits the 'Bacon Strip,' a Paradise for Rock Nerds

Perseverance is in geology heaven.

Amanda Kooser
Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto.
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Amanda Kooser
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Orbital view of Jezero Crater and the "bacon strip," a lighter geologic formation across a darker area of river delta on Mars. A line shows the Perseverance rover's travel path.
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Orbital view of Jezero Crater and the "bacon strip," a lighter geologic formation across a darker area of river delta on Mars. A line shows the Perseverance rover's travel path.

The bacon strip nickname came from views like this. The lighter-color area is now known as Hogwallow Flats. The line shows the rover's path across the crater, and the blue icon shows its location.

 NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/University of Arizona

What a delightful time to be a Mars fan. We've got a pet rock, a mysterious piece of foil and a bonanza of stunning landscapes where NASA's Perseverance rover is exploring an intriguing river delta region in the Jezero Crater. The latest views are sizzling. Meet the "bacon strip."

This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet.

The bacon strip got its original nickname from how the ground looks in images from a distance, like a piece of breakfast meat. It now has a more official nickname: Hogwallow Flats, a nod to a scenic spot in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

The Perseverance team tweeted out several views of the bacon strip/Hogwallow Flats area on Thursday, saying "...the nearby rocks are a sight to behold. My team is happy as pigs in mud(stone)!"

The Perseverance team shared some close-ups of the surrounding landscape, tweeting, "Tons of potential targets for study. Paradise for rock nerds like myself."

The delta is a prime spot for Percy to pursue one of its main goals: investigating whether Mars might've hosted microbial life. "We will look for signs of ancient life in the rocks at the base of the delta, rocks that we think were once mud on the bottom of 'Lake Jezero,'" said Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley in a mission update in April. 

The rover is doing more than just looking. It's also collecting rock samples that'll hopefully be retrieved by a future mission and brought back to Earth for study. Rocks gathered from the delta will be of particular interest considering the history of water in that spot.

Come for the rocks. Stay for the search for ancient life.