- 3640 - PERSEVERANCE - rover on Mars? Scientists with NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission have discovered that the bedrock their six-wheeled explorer has been driving on since landing in February likely formed from red-hot magma. The discovery has implications for understanding and accurately dating critical events in the history of Jezero Crater, as well as the rest of the planet.
--------------------- 3640 - PERSEVERANCE - rover on Mars?
- Rocks in the Jezero Crater have interacted with water multiple times over the eons and that some contain organic molecules. Even before Perseverance touched down on Mars, the mission’s science team had wondered about the origin of the rocks in this area.
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- Were the rocks sedimentary, the compressed accumulation of mineral particles possibly carried to the location by an ancient river system? Or, were they igneous, possibly born in lava flows rising to the surface from a now long-extinct Martian volcano?
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- The drill at the end of Perseverance’s robotic arm can abrade, or grind, rock surfaces to allow other instruments, such as PIXL, to study them. “Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry“, PIXL uses X-ray fluorescence to map the elemental composition of rocks.
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- PIXL analyzed a South Séítah rock the science team had chosen to take a core sample from using the rover’s drill. The PIXL data showed the rock, nicknamed “Brac,” to be composed of an unusual abundance of large olivine crystals engulfed in pyroxene crystals.
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- The delta formed billions of years ago from sediment an ancient river carried to the mouth of a lake that once existed in the crater. Such a texture indicates the rock formed when crystals grew and settled in a slowly cooling magma, a thick lava flow, lava lake, or magma chamber.
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- The rock was then altered by water several times, making it a treasure trove that will allow future scientists to date events in Jezero, better understand the period in which water was more common on its surface, and reveal the early history of the planet.
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- The multi-mission Mars Sample Return campaign began with Perseverance, which is collecting Martian rock samples in search of ancient microscopic life. Of Perseverance’s 43 sample tubes, six have been sealed to date, four with rock cores, one with Martian atmosphere, and one that contained “witness” material to observe any contamination the rover might have brought from Earth.
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- Mars Sample Return seeks to bring select tubes back to Earth, where generations of scientists will be able to study them with powerful lab equipment far too large to send to Mars.
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- Mars Sample Return mission is the discovery of organic compounds by the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument. The carbon-containing molecules are not only in the interiors of abraded rocks SHERLOC analyzed, but in the dust on non-abraded rock.
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- Confirmation of organics is not a confirmation that life once existed in Jezero and left telltale signs (biosignatures). There are both biological and non-biological mechanisms that create organics.
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- “Curiosity” rover also discovered organics at its landing site within Gale Crater. SHERLOC has the capability to map the spatial distribution of organics inside rocks and relate those organics to minerals found there. This helps us understand the environment in which the organics formed. More analysis needs to be done to determine the method of production for the identified organics.
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- The preservation of organics inside ancient rocks at both Gale and Jezero Craters does mean that potential biosignatures could be preserved, too. When these samples are returned to Earth, they will be a source of scientific inquiry and discovery for many years.
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- Along with its rock-core sampling capabilities, Perseverance has brought the first ground-penetrating radar to the surface of Mars. “RIMFAX” (Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment) creates a “radargram” of subsurface features up to about 33 feet deep. Data for this first released radargram was collected as the rover drove across a ridgeline from the “Crater Floor Fractured Rough” geologic unit into the Séítah geologic unit.
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- The ridgeline has multiple rock formations with a visible downward tilt. With RIMFAX data, Perseverance scientists now know that these angled rock layers continue at the same angle well below the surface.
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- The radargram also shows the Séítah rock layers project below those of Crater Floor Fractured Rough. The results further confirm the science team’s belief that the creation of Séítah preceded Crater Floor Fractured Rough. The ability to observe geologic features even below the surface adds a new dimension to the team’s geologic mapping capabilities at Mars.
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- A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
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- Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
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- The dramatic touchdown on Mars for the Perseverance rover and the stowaway Ingenuity helicopter was on February 18, 2021.
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- The six-wheeled, one-armed nuclear-powered mobile science lab has traversing through Jezero Crater, a location that very likely contained a lake billions of years ago. Recently, Perseverance has been using the drill on the end of its robotic arm to collect samples of Martian rocks. Collecting these samples is the first step of an eventual Mars Sample Return campaign.
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- Perseverance broke a record for the most distance driven by a Mars rover in a single day, traveling almost 1,050 feet . This took place on February 14, 2022, the 351st Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
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- The rover performed the entire drive using “AutoNav“, the self-driving software that allows Perseverance to find its own path around rocks and other obstacles.
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- One of the biggest surprises of the mission has been the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. No one knew for sure it would work to fly the tiny helicopter in the thin Martian atmosphere, and the original plan had the helicopter taking up to five flights over the span of about 30 days.
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- ‘Ginny’ completed 19 flights over the past 10 months. The second phase of the rover’s mission will be to study the remains of a fan-shaped delta formed by an ancient river as it fed the lake in Jezero Crater.
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- Scientists want to get to the delta because they normally accumulate sediment over time, potentially trapping organic matter and possible biosignatures, or signs of life, that may be in the environment. The mission expects to reach this destination in the summer of 2022.
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------------------- for more about Mars Rovers:
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- See Review 3639 - INSIGHT - rover on Mars? Despite its draining 2022 power, NASA’s “InSight” Mars lander is determined to squeeze as much science as it can until the very last moment. Its solar panels are caked with dust and the batteries are running out of juice, but InSight Mars lander continues to soldier forth collecting more science about the Red Planet until its very last beep.
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July 31, 2022 PERSEVERANCE - rover on Mars? 3640
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