NASA’s Mars rover has reached an important milestone.
Perseverance has safely reached the ancient Red Planet River Delta remnants at the bottom of the 28-mile (45 kilometer) wide Jezero Crater, NASA announced today (April 19).
Expedition team members said the delta would be a “geological feast” for perseverance looking for signs of fossilization. Martian life. (The promising rocks will be stored in the campaign cache for the Sample Return mission that NASA and its European counterpart plan to launch later this decade.)
“We’ve been observing the delta from afar for over a year as we explore the crater floor,” Ken Farley, a perseverance project scientist at Caltech, said in a statement. Statement Wednesday, April 19 from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which operates the Perseverance mission.
Now that the rover is in the area, Farley added, her next moves will be to “get increasingly detailed images that reveal the best places we can explore these important rocks.”
Related: 12 stunning photos of the first year of the Perseverance rover on Mars
Perseverance landed in February 2021 inside the Jezero Crater, which expedition scientists believe was home to a lake and river delta billions of years ago. These conditions must be favorable for microbes, which means that the delta region is a rich region to look for signs of Martian life (if any).
The rover was operating slightly south and west of its landing site during its first (Earth) year Mars but recently passed through its landing area on its way to the delta. Perseverance will spend the next week driving southwest and west to determine how best to explore this part of the delta.
Data from Perseverance indicates that the delta sediments are about 130 feet (40 meters) above the crater floor, and teams are considering two options, according to a JPL statement. The preferred route, at least for now, is through an area called “Hawksbill Gap” because it seems like it can be reached in less time. But a backup option, ‘Cape Nukshak’, is available in case the next few days’ data shows that this is a safer route.
“Whichever path Perseverance takes to the plateau at the top of the delta, the team will conduct detailed scientific investigations, including sampling the core rocks, climbing, then turning and doing the same on the way back down,” JPL officials said. in the statement.
The rover will spend about six months collecting eight samples during this maneuver campaign, called Delta Front. The plan then calls for perseverance to climb to the top of the delta, and perhaps making the option to save to experience an area that has never been traveled before, to spend another six months on the “Delta Top Campaign”.
“Delta is the reason we send perseverance to Jezero Crater: It has so many great features,” Farley said. “We will look for signs of ancient life in the rocks at the base of the delta, the rocks we think were once mud at the bottom of Lake Jezero.”
Perseverance will also try to pick up sand and rock shards from above the river, in areas where the rover is not expected to visit during its life on Mars. The geography would be very useful, Farley said: “We can take advantage of the ancient Martian river that brought us the geological secrets of the planet.”
JPL officials added that Perseverance began its second science expedition a month ahead of schedule, due to an improved independent hazard detection system that allows it to avoid obstacles in the Jezero Crater such as boulders, sharp boulders, pits and sandpits. (The rover was asked to stop and turn 55 times to avoid dangers on this last overland flight, JPL added.)
In contrast, the 10-year-old Curiosity spacecraft recently had to return to a planned trajectory due to the dangerous “alligator ride” terrain. Curiosity also has an older version of the Martian Wheel that is less optimized for sometimes dangerous terrain, compared to persistence. JPL officials say that Percy’s wheels have twice the tread and a smooth curve, which adapts better to the terrain.
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