Perseverance has been investigating Mars' Jezero Crater for the past year and a half in order to understand more about the planet's history. The robot is collecting samples of Martian rock and soil as part of this mission, which it will store in a cache for future retrieval. These will be sent back to Earth for analysis as part of a NASA/ESA sample-return mission and may include proof of former life.
The first of these rock samples have been acquired thanks to the worldwide team of geologists and astrobiologists supervising the collection procedure. Researchers from Caltech, the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), the NASA Johnson Space Center, the Planetary Exploration Team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Institut de Minéralogie, de Physique des Matériaux et de Cosmochimie, the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS), and numerous other institutions made up the team.
Their research was just published in the journal Science under the title "Aqueously altered igneous rocks sampled on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars."
The samples were taken from the Jezero Crater's bottom, which was formerly a lakebed that had water pouring into it. Sedimentary deposits on the west side of the crater, which resemble a river delta, show that they were flow channels, proving this
Because scientists think that samples from these sedimentary formations would offer information about the geological history of Mars, this location was particularly chosen as the landing site for Perseverance. This involves the time (and length of time) the planet had flowing water on its surface, whether persistently or in short bursts, as well as how it changed into what we see today.
The prospect that these samples will contain proof of past life on Mars, which might have arisen billions of years ago when Mars had a warmer, wetter climate, is even more intriguing.
One of the long-term planners for the Perseverance mission, Amy Williams, a professor of geology at UF, assists in deciding where the rover will dig and what tests and samples to prioritize.
Perseverance has been exploring the crater floor since it touched down in February 2021, using a variety of technologies to examine the geological characteristics, the chemical makeup of the rocks, and the subsurface structure.
Their findings thus far have supported the notion that the environment is more complicated than previously believed. Whatever the samples' findings, they are sure to be groundbreaking and have the potential to completely change how we think about Mars.
