The six-wheeled geologist is getting some help in finding diverse rock samples that can be brought back to Earth for deeper investigation.
The Perseverance Mars rover has obtained an important rock core sample, potentially containing diverse geological profiles. The sample, which is intended for a comprehensive study of Earth, will support the rover's astronomical mission and pave the way for future human exploration of Mars.
Uncovering geological stories
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover sealed its 20th rock core sample tube on June 23 (the mission's 832nd Mars day, or sol), and the mission's science team is excited about its potential. This is because the sample was drilled by the rover from an outcrop consisting of small fragments of other rocks that had been transported by a river from elsewhere in the distant past and deposited here, where They were cemented together. Groups like this one (nicknamed "Emerald Lake" by the team) pack a wealth of information about places the rover might never visit, with each new piece of rock representing a geologic story.
"Rocks and boulders in the river are messengers from afar," said Persistence Project Scientist Ken Farley of Caltech in Pasadena. "And while the water that created the Martian riverbanks that Perseverance is currently searching for evaporated billions of years ago, the story carried by those waters remains fresh, preserved in the collective rock. "
Pattern of Oats Peak cover and its significance
Persistence is collecting these samples so that they can be brought back to Earth by the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Sample Return mission and studied with laboratory equipment that is too large and complex to bring to Mars. . Scientists will be able to look at every pebble and fragment in the core, dubbed "Oats Peak," to determine details such as its age, what the environmental conditions were like in the river, and whether Does it have antiquities or not? Microbial life.
Now in its third science expedition, Persistence is exploring the top of a 130-foot (40-meter) tall fan-shaped pile of sedimentary rock. With the sample sealed and stored in its belly, the rover is heading to a low peak known as "Snowdrift Peak". To get there he has to cross a field of stones.
Boulder field analysis
As with the rock fragments in the Otis Peak sample, scientists believe the rocks likely formed elsewhere and were transported to their current location by an ancient river billions of years ago. Boulders are also desirable because their large surface area allows scientists to visually investigate many potentially separate rocks in one image. So the team will keep their options open, ready to stop for anything that piques their curiosity.
Whether the stones look interesting enough to warrant closer examination and possible sampling remains to be seen, Farley said. "We're taking a page from the past. In the old days, prospectors looking for gold or diamonds often looked in rivers to determine if there were deposits of interest upstream. You had to climb up there to see. No – let the river do the work!”
More about the mission
The Perseverance mission on Mars centers on astronomy, including caching samples that may be evidence of ancient microbial life. Additionally, the rover aims to characterize the planet's geology and past climate, lay the groundwork for human exploration of Mars, and is the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
Future NASA missions, in collaboration with ESA, plan to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples and return them to Earth for extensive analysis. The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon-to-Mars exploration approach, which includes the Artemis mission to the Moon to pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. Operations of the Perseverance rover are built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory under Caltech management for the agency.
