Perseverance explores bedrock on Mars where it looks for signs of life

Exploring Mars since February 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover has had many adventures looking for signs of life on the Red Planet.

He has now arrived at an area at the base of Jezero crater, his landing and survey site, where he is expected to collect fine-grained rocks deposited by the ancient water flow that existed there. Sealed within these sedimentary rocks, according to the researchers, there may be organic molecules that represent evidence of past life.

For months, NASA scientists have been eager to explore the area, dubbed “Yori Pass,” located in the ancient fan-shaped delta formed about 3.5 billion years ago at the convergence of a Martian river and lake. .

According to the website space.comthe site caught the attention of researchers when they spotted something resembling a sandstone rock that Perseverance sampled in July.

Collecting rock samples is part of the rover’s goal to look for any signs that life once existed on Mars (any telltale element, molecule, substance, or feature).

“We often prioritize the study of fine-grained sedimentary rocks like this in our search for organics and potential biosignatures,” said Katie Stack Morgan, Deputy Perseverance Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “What is particularly interesting about the Yori Pass outcrop is that laterally it is equivalent to ‘Hogwallow Flats’, where we find very fine-grained sedimentary rocks.”

This rock formation is of interest to the team because they believe these fine-grained specimens are more likely to retain evidence of life, as they contain a higher concentration of clayey materials that can shield large organic molecules from strong solar radiation, preventing them from degrading. .

Since landing on Mars, the Perseverance rover has collected 14 rock core samples and one atmospheric sample, which are stored in its “belly”. The rover’s first successful sampling was in September 2021.

These collections are a key element of NASA’s planned joint sample return mission with the European Space Agency (ESA), which aims to send a spacecraft to Mars, capture Perseverance’s sealed Martian samples and return them to Earth for a in-depth analysis. .

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Source: Olhar Digital