Science and Tech

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Collected First Sample on Mars

NASA’s Perseverance rover is on a mission to Mars to collect a sample of rocks and soil. It is its new science campaign to identify life on Mars and know the past of that red planet. 

Perseverance rover exploring and collecting the samples from Mars Jezero Crater’s delta.  

Perseverance Rover Collect Samples from Mars 

NASA's Perseverance Rover

Perseverance Rover Collecting the Sample from Jezero Crater

NASA’s Perseverance rover collected 19 samples and three witness tubes. Recently deposited the 10 tubes as a backup cache on the Martian surface as part of the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) MARS Sample return campaign. 

Scientists wanted to study these samples collected from Mars with advanced equipment labs on earth. 

Through these studies, they’ll search for signs of ancient microbial life and better understand the water cycle that has shaped the surface and interior of Mars. 

Instruments - NASA Mars

Perseverance Rover

Which Area Are Explored By NASA’s Perseverance Rover 

NASA Perseverance Rover: Jezero Crater

Jezero Crater on Mars

NASA’s Perseverance rover collected samples from the “Berea” rock.

The Berea rock formed from the deposits that were carried from the ancient river to the Jezero crater area.

The material of the rock came from the location outside the Jezero crater.

Katie Stack Morgan deputy project scientist for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California said “The second reason is that the rock is rich in carbonate, “Carbonate rocks on Earth can be good at preserving fossilized lifeforms. If biosignatures were present in this part of Jezero Crater, it could be a rock like this one that could very well hold their secrets.”  

Ancient Atmosphere of Mars

NASA Perseverance Rover

Ancient Atmosphere on Mars

Scientists always wanted to know the ancient atmosphere of Mars, when there was a river.

The sample from the ‘Berea’ rock is actually a ‘carbonate’ which forms due to chemical interaction between river sediments and water.

NASA Perseverance Rover

This image shows the rock core from Berea inside the drill of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Each core the rover takes is about the size of a piece of classroom chalk: 0.5 inches (13 millimeters) in diameter and 2.4 inches (60 millimeters) long. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This rock allows scientists to study the long-term changes on Mars planet.

NASA Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley said “

“The Berea core highlights the beauty of rover missions, Perseverance’s mobility has allowed us to collect igneous samples from the relatively flat crater floor during the first campaign, and then travel to the base of the crater’s delta, where we found fine-grained sedimentary rocks deposited in a dried lakebed.” 

Now we are sampling from a geologic location where we find coarse-grained sedimentary rocks deposited in a river. With this diversity of environments to observe and collect from, we are confident that these samples will allow us to better understand what occurred here at Jezero Crater billions of years ago.”

Also Read: NASA’s Next Mission: Exploring $Quadrillion 16 Psyche Asteroid 

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