More than fifteen months after arriving at Jezero Crater on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has begun searching for ancient life in earnest.On the 28th of May, Perseverance anchored a circle 5 inches wide on a rock below what was then a river delta in a crater. This delta formed billions of years ago, when the long-lost river deposits layers of soil in Jeero, and that is the main reason why NASA sent a rover here. On earth, river sediment is usually packed with life.The poet William Blake states: “’To see the earth in the grains of sand’ comes to mind,” writes Sanjeev Gupta, a geologist at Imperial College London, Twitter.
The rover will spend the next few months exploring the Jezero delta, while machine scientists decide they want to drill and pull out rock samples. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) plan to return those samples and return them to Earth for reading, by 2033, on the first return sample from Mars.
‘Go to the buffet’
Patience came in February 2021, a few miles from the edge of the delta. He spent most of his early months exploring the crater floor – unexpectedly made of flammable stones, a type that creates cool melted objects. That was a scientific jackpot because scientists could point to the time of the burning rocks on the basis of radiation decomposition of their chemical elements. But many researchers have been adamant that Perseverance has come to the forefront of the river, its excellent pillars with the best chance of proving Martian life.
The rover finally arrived in the delta area in April. He soon spotted gray-haired, rocky outcrops called mudstones, which may have formed in the form of sand dunes in a slow river or lake. He also discovered sandstone grains, which may have formed in a fast-moving river. These types of stones are an excellent target for studying the various Martian areas where life could have improved, Katie Stack Morgan, deputy scientist for the Perseverance project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said on May 17 during the 2022 Astronomy Conference .
Mission Engineers then removed Perseverance from the area, called Enchanted Lake, and moved to another area known as the Hawksbill Gap, where it currently operates. The freshly cut piece is made of sandstone in one of the lowest rocks in the delta, which is one of the oldest rocks formed by the ancient Jezero River and thus an excellent hunting ground for ancient life.
The delta rises about 40 feet above the crater floor. Rover drivers plan to send Perseverance up front of the delta and then back down, checking where and how samples were taken. “It’s like going to a buffet before you fill up your plate,” said Jennifer Trosper, project manager at JPL. As it climbs, it will explore rocks, including piercing many spots to see the interior of the rocks. On the way down, it will pierce and collect the most interesting samples.As a child assembles a set of gemstones to collect gemstones, mechanical scientists are debating which gever stones should be sampled to compile a very different geographical repository. Patience carries 43 tube tubes, each thicker than a pencil. NASA and ESA plan to restore 30 full tubes to Earth.
NASA plans to hold a public meeting
The mission planners were not expecting to put down samples anytime soon, but the location is pretty good – it is flat and has a few rocks that could interfere with the returning return spacecraft. “It’s a great place to get to Mars,” Trosper said.NASA plans to hold a public meeting of planetary scientists in September, to assess whether the collection it has so far is ‘scientifically’ enough to be taken. That is an important question because of all the time and money needed to replace the tubes. NASA wants the wider community to examine the mission team’s idea of ”collecting the highest value archive we believe the site can find,” Farley said.
First launch was supposed to take place in 2026
NASA and ESA are working on a US $ 5-billion plan to send two passengers to Mars – with a rover to take samples, a rocket to send them to Mars orbit – and a spacecraft to launch them. of orbit and fly back to Earth. The first launch was supposed to take place in 2026, but that timeline was changed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The ESA has terminated all cooperation with Russia’s air force over the war. The dispute has disrupted the planned Russian-European Mars rover – and now NASA and ESA are reorganizing their plans to land on Mars. They have a specific time: Perseverance sample tubes are designed to last for decades under Martian conditions.
As well as taking rock samples, Perseverance has made some discoveries at Jezreel, including how dust demons emit large amounts of dust into the air1 and how the speed of sound fluctuates in the rich atmosphere of Mars2. The rover has so far traveled more than seven miles [11 km], and recorded a milestone in the distance of 5 miles [30 km] in 30 days on the Martian, in March and April.
Perseverance’s sidekick, a small helicopter, Ingenuity, has contributed to some rover achievements – but its time on Mars is likely to end. It was originally designed to make only 5 aircraft, contradicting 28 expectations. From its location in its view of the sky, it has helped to explore the best routes of Perseverance, and explored the flat area in the river area where future missions can reach. However, in early May, Wisdom lost contact with the rover as dust in the atmosphere blocked out sunlight, a helicopter that needed to charge solar panels and a battery. Wisdom is now facing a dusty sky and cold temperatures as the Martian winters go down, and they may have trouble flying.
Source Journal Reference: Alexandra Witze, NASA’s Perseverance rover begins key search for life on Mars, Nature News (2022). doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01543-z,
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