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Well, look at that: the Perseverance rover has come out of the crater that has been its cradle around the Red Planet for four years.
Persistence landed on Mars In February 2021, the rover is charged with searching for biosignatures that indicate the inhospitable world not only once supported life, but actually did. To quickly money what did the rover do?
Percy has worked on the surface of Mars for the past 3.5 years.During his tenure, the rover has dug into the rockstaken Images of the surface of Mars and: Mars helicopter Ingenuityand: compiled a collection of rock samples it will hopefully be one day brought to Earth for study.
The rover landed in Jesero Crater, which was once a large lake formed by an impact about 3.9 billion years ago. At the western edge of the crater was a river delta that researchers want to study on Earth;after all.
A: session At yesterday’s annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Perseverance project scientists discussed Perseverance’s new environment and what lies ahead for the rover as it continues its journey through the rugged terrain. Briony Horgan, a planetary scientist at Purdue University and an investigator on the Perseverance mission, spoke to Gizmodo by phone. with to discuss further developments.
“The rim of the crater itself is uplifted by the impact,” Horgan said. really ancient things.’
Persistence is the name of the game. strange stones. The rover team imaged and sampled areas of the Martian terrain that have an odd appearance or chemical composition, such as “leopard spot” rocks. revealed in July. These rocks could provide clues to ancient life, but also The evolution of Mars himself. Because old Mars theorized Because these rocks were Earth-like, they may shed light on how our world became green and wet and Mars so, well, Martian.
“One of the reasons we’re excited about the crater rim is that impact craters generate heat from this large impact,” Horgan said. “That drives hydrothermal systems through the crust, and those are really habitable environments.”
The persistence samples will be a game-changer, allowing scientists to interrogate Mars’ ancient past in a way that is very difficult, if not impossible, to do remotely with a rover more than 100 million miles away.
As Persistence looks into Mars’ ancient past, scientists can glean information about its ancient potential to host microbial life and how the planet evolved into the dry, rocky, windswept world we know today.
“These are unique samples that will teach us about almost every aspect of the early Solar System and how planets evolved,” Horgan said, “and they will continue to do so for decades to come.”
It’s a shame we have to wait for NASA to find the funding and the right program to bring the samples home; it’s hard to hold your breath for more than a minute, much less years, but the wait is definitely worth it. Until then, there are plenty of insights to be gleaned remotely as Perseverance begins its work on the oldest rocks in the solar system.
