How Will NASA's Perseverance Rover Search for Ancient Life on Mars?

Red Planet. After the rover lands and the Jezero Crater on February one, the robotic vehicle will roam the crater, extracting chalk sized pieces of Martian rock that eventually could reveal whether life once existed on the Solar System's fourth planet from the Sun. Perseverance weighs two thousand, two hundred and sixty pounds that's one thousand and twenty five kilos and measures about ten ft or three meters long, and it's the latest in a succession of Mars rovers that

has included Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. Since Curiosity arrived on the Martian surface in August, it's traveled over fourteen miles almost twenty three kilometers, and in twenty nineteen found evidence of an ancient oasis on the seemingly arid planets Gale Crater.

NASA plans for Perseverance to operate for at least one Martian year that's six eighty seven Earth days, and cover a distance of between three and twelve miles or five and twenty kilometers Perseverance's most attention getting scientific goal is to search for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars, but as two NASA scientists explain, the mission is much more complex. We spoke via email jointly with Michael Mayer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program, and Mitch Schultz,

a Mars Program scientist. They said, the most significant aspect of this mission is that the mission represents the evolution of studying Mars, follow the water, understand a bit ability,

and now search for the signs of ancient life. However, we don't know what we will find until we get there, and that will be the most significant Among the mission goals are to understand the geologic environment of the landing site and search for biosignatures, and the rover is ably equipped to either find or at least identify the most promising samples that might have preserved biosignatures, and the extremely promising part cash them to be brought back to Earth

to be examined by the best instruments in the world. NASA had to complete preparations for the launch in the middle of the COVID nineteen pandemic. The situation required the project team to limit the number of personnel working together at any one time at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and workers had to practice social distancing, wear protective equipment,

and use hand sanitizer and other cleaning supplies. But on these science end, NASA workers were more concerned about maintaining the cleanliness of the planetary Probe sampling and cashing system, which will handle Martian soil and rock samples. Mayor and Shoot explain the contamination control levels are unprecedented for any spacecraft and unachievable in most laboratories on Earth. To build a sampling system to such ultra clean standards and keep

the system clean has been a real achievement. Of course, the proof of the pudding will be when the samples are returned to Earth. Technically, the Rover is the most complex spacecraft sent to Mars, and designing and building the sample caching system was a substantial challenge. The only challenge posed by the pandemic has been keeping the team assembling the spacecraft and launch vehicles safe, which has been successful.

Jesero Crater was chosen as a landing site because it's an area that researchers believe is likely to harbor evidence of ancient microscopic organisms. Mayor and Schultz wrote, our orbital studies show that Jesero Crater was an ancient crater lake with a recognizable delta deposit, indicative of water flowing into a standing body of water. Life as we know it

requires a liquid water environment to exist. In addition, a critical aspect is that the same site shows a high die versity of environments, a great place to sample multiple rock types that can tell us about the climate and geological history of the crater and the planet on Earth. Delta is one type of deposit you would expect to

have signs of life preserved. Furthermore, there are other tantalizing mineral deposits, like the purported lake shore has carbonate rocks, also a good place to have preserved evidence of life if there was any. Well perseverances instruments will gather some data about the area from which these Martian soil and rock samples are gathered. The samples themselves eventually will be retrieved by a future mission and transported back to Earth

for more extensive analysis. The two NASA scientists explained that while the retrieval details are still being worked out quote, the general plan is that in NASA and the European Space Agency will launch two missions. One a lander that will carry a fetch rover to get the samples and a rocket for lifting the samples off the red planet. The other mission will be an bitter for capturing the sample container launched from the surface of Mars and then

bringing the contained samples to Earth. Of course, we will know a fair amount about the samples and the area of Jesero Crater from which they come because of the science instruments on board the rover, Perseverance is well equipped to explore the region to understand the present and ancient environment. The details of each side explored and specifically each rock are regular from which the sample will have been collected.

We're likely to see some spectacular pictures of the Martian surface too, since the rover is equipped with more and better cameras twenty three and all than any previous Mars mission, and the Perseverance mission will provide an opportunity for the first test of the Ingenuity robotic helicopter, which could be an important part of future planetary exploration. The scientists said the helicopter is a technology demonstration, and as such, the

flights are designed to test its capabilities. The potential of Ingenuity to contribute to the science of the mission is there, but will be incidental to the data being collected for assessing the helicopter's performance. Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Keiger and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other persevering topics, visit how stuff works

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