NASA’s Perseverance rover is well into its second science campaign, collecting rock core samples from formations in an area scientists have long considered the best prospect for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. Since July 7, the rover has collected four samples from an ancient river delta in Lake Crater on the Red Planet, bringing the total number of scientifically conclusive rock samples to 12. We chose Lake Crater for Perseverance to explore because we thought it had the best chance of providing scientifically outstanding samples and now we know we sent the rover to the right place,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science in Washington. “These first two science campaigns have yielded an amazing variety of samples to bring back to Earth. the Mars Sample Return campaign.”
In Jezero Crater, which is 45 kilometers wide, there is a delta – an ancient fan-shaped formation that formed about 3.5 billion years ago at the confluence of a Martian river and a lake. Perseverance is currently examining the delta’s sedimentary rocks, which formed when particles of various sizes settled in a once-aquatic environment. During its first science campaign, the rover explored the crater floor and found igneous rock that forms deep underground from magma or during volcanic activity on the surface.
“The delta, with its diverse sedimentary rocks, contrasts beautifully with the igneous rocks — formed by the crystallization of magma — found on the crater floor,” said Perseverance Project Scientist Ken Farley of Caltech in Pasadena, California. “This comparison gives us a rich understanding of the geologic history after crater formation and a diverse set of samples. For example, we found sandstone that carries grains and rock fragments formed far away from the Lake crater—and mud that contains interesting organic compounds.” .”
“Wildcat Ridge” is the name given to a rock about 3 feet (1 meter) wide that probably formed billions of years ago when mud and fine sand settled in an evaporating salt lake. On July 20, the rover scraped off part of the surface of Wildcat Ridge to analyze the area with an instrument called Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals, or SHERLOC. SHERLOC analysis shows that the samples contain a class of organic molecules that are spatially correlated with sulfate mineral molecules. Sulfate minerals found in sedimentary rock layers can provide significant information about the aquatic environment in which they formed.
Organic molecules consist of a wide variety of compounds made primarily of carbon and usually contain hydrogen and oxygen atoms. They may also contain other elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur. Although there are chemical processes that produce these molecules that do not require life, some of these compounds are the chemical building blocks of life. The presence of these specific molecules is considered a potential biosignature – a substance or structure that could be evidence of past life, but could also have been formed without the presence of life.
In 2013, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover found evidence of organic matter in rock dust samples, and Perseverance had previously detected organic matter in Jezero Crater. But unlike the previous discovery, this latest detection was made in an area where, in the distant past, sediments and salts were deposited into the lake under conditions where life could potentially exist. In its analysis of Wildcat Ridge, the SHERLOC instrument recorded the most abundant organic detections of the mission to date.
The first step in the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Sample Return campaign began when Perseverance produced its first rock sample in September 2021. Along with rock core samples, the rover collected one atmospheric sample and two test tubes. of which are stored in the belly of the rover. “I have spent most of my career studying the habitability and geology of Mars, and I have seen firsthand the incredible scientific value of returning a carefully collected set of Martian rocks to Earth,” said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“That we are weeks from deploying Perseverance’s fascinating specimens and mere years from bringing them to Earth for scientists to study in exquisite detail is truly phenomenal. We will learn so much.” The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s lunar exploration approach to Mars, which includes the Artemis lunar missions to help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
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