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The presence of one or more depots increases the chances that precious samples will be retrievable for return to Earth.įor weather, science, and COVID-19 updates on the go, download The Weather Channel App (on Android and iOS store).Important note on imagery & specification.
Later in the mission, Perseverance plans on multiple "depots" to drop off samples for a future mission to bring back to Earth. Therefore, all Mars missions will be taking a break from commanding their spacecraft for several weeks by the beginning of October. However, the rover will drill South Sétah only sometime after October as a precautionary measure due to a period known as Mars solar conjunction-the period during which the Earth and Mars are obscured from each other by the Sun and are temporarily invisible to each other. South Sétah, on the other hand, is likely older and will help the scientists better understand the events that shaped the crater floor, including the lake.
The rover's recent drill sample likely represents one of the youngest rock layers found on the floor of Jezero Crater.
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The next likely sample site for Perseverance is only 656 feet (200 metres) away in South Sétah-a series of ridges covered in sand dunes, boulders, and rock shards, that Ken Farley compares to "broken dinner plates". The lighter-colored inner-ring is the open end of the sample tube, and inside is a rock core sample slightly thicker than a pencil. The bronze-colored outer ring is the coring bit. With more and more such pieces coming together, scientists will be able to arrange them correctly and voilà: we will have a timeline of the crater's most important events such as the formation of Jezero Crater, the appearance and disappearance of Jezero's lake, ancient climate changes, etc. The presence of crystalline minerals in volcanic rocks has made radiometric dating easier, and scientists might be able to date the rock's formation using its volcanic origin.Įvery piece of sample that is collected is a piece of a larger chronological puzzle. Many exciting possibilities have cropped up now that NASA has uncovered that the rock samples collected are basaltic in composition, meaning they could be the product of a lava flow. "It's a big deal that the water was there a long time." "It looks like our first rocks reveal a potentially habitable sustained environment," stated Ken Farley of Caltech, project scientist for the mission, which is led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. NASA researchers, who have been on a mission to put together a timeline for Jezero's past, have finally found evidence for volcanic activity and periods of persistent water. Read more: Perseverance Emerges Victorious: NASA's Rover Collects the First-Ever Rock Sample From Mars Uncovering the Past The first sample 'Montdenier' and the second sample 'Montagnac' were collected on the 6th and 8th of September, respectively. The rover seems to be on a sample collecting spree lately and has already obtained two samples from the rock 'Rochette' that lies in the Jezero crater of the Red Planet. The Perseverance Mars rover that NASA had launched back in February 2021 has now collected rock samples that show telltale signs of being in contact with water for an extended period, bolstering the possibility for ancient life on Mars.