52 years ago, Neil Armstrong was the main actor when he took the first sample from the Sea of Tranquility, and this time NASA’s Perseverance as the main actor is preparing to capture its first samples on Mars also known as the ‘Red planet’.
The process which is to take place in the next two weeks was announced on July 21 by the group’s agency.
Perseverance had Feb 18 landed on the planet Mars in an ancient lake bed known as ‘Jezero Crater”, their mission being to explore and discover signs of ancient life in the planet. All this was set so that the rover which was designed to collect and store samples of Martian material will return to Earth by a mission come early 2030s.
Rover started its science phase June 1 and it has been exploring a 1.5-square-mile (4 square kilometers) region of the crater floor. NASA’s Perseverance rover will then take its first samples in an area known as the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough.”
Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters had this to say about the spectacular events;
“When Neil Armstrong took the first sample from the Sea of Tranquility 52 years ago, he began a process that would rewrite what humanity knew about the Moon,”
“I have every expectation that Perseverance’s first sample from Jezero Crater, and those that come after, will do the same for Mars,” he added.
Perseverance Project scientist Ken Farley told reporters in a news briefing that “Perseverance landed on the Red Planet on February 18, and over the summer moved about a kilometer to the south of its landing site,”
“Now we’re looking at environments that are much further in the past — billions of years in the past.”
According to the NASA Perseverance rover team, it is believed that the crater was once home to an ancient lake that filled and drew down multiple times, potentially creating the conditions necessary for life.
The rover will also search for possible signs of ancient microbes and in other to know where to source for samples; Perseverance will deploy its 7-foot (two-meter) long robotic arm.
It will then use an abrasion tool to scrape off the rock’s top layer, exposing unweathered surfaces, with scientific instruments readily on ground to determine chemical and mineral composition, and search for available organic matter.
Farley added that a small cliff that harbored fine-layered rocks may likely have been a formation from lake mud’s, and “those are very good places to look for bio–signatures.”
Each of the rocks undergoing analysis will have an untouched geologic “twin” which the rover will seal and keep safe under its belly.
Sampling these new found rocks could solve a long time mystery that has been plaguing the mission team. The crater is said to be the site of an ancient lake, with NASA perseverance scientists expecting to discover sedimentary rock, while the research team have a theory that this region could possibly be volcanic rock instead.
“We still don’t know if it’s an igneous rock, like a volcanic flow, or if it’s a sedimentary rock that was deposited by air or in water,” Scientist Sun said.
“And, of course understanding the origin of this Crater Floor Fractured Rock unit is going to be critical to not only reconstructing the history of this lake that used to be here but also it’s important for understanding the geologic history in general as well as the area around Jezero in this region of Mars.”
NASA is said to be planning a return mission with the European Space Agency , in the process collating the stored samples and returning them for lab analysis on Earth, in the year 2032.
Maybe scientists at the time would be able to truly say they have found signs of ancient life forms on the planet.
