Mars: NASA’s rover finds ‘perfect evidence’ on the Red Planet

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has made an amazing discovery. Researchers are excited by this discovery.

Frankfurt/Pasadena – Shortly after arriving on the planet Mars planet* In February 2021, the NASA rover “Perseverance” sent researchers to Earth data that clarified a key question of Mars: Was Jezero Crater where the rover once landed on the lake? The researchers’ answer was: Yes. “This is an important observation that confirms once and for all that Jezero Crater contained a lake and a river delta,” scientist Nicholas Mangold said in a NASA statement. Now the US space agency is releasing the next surprise discovered by the rover on Mars.

Just a few months after landing on Mars, the “Perseverance” rover has once again answered a question that has long been on researchers’ minds: whether the stones are in the landing zone of sedimentary origin, that is, the water involved in their formation. Was the flow, or are their origins volcanic in nature and they formed in lava flows?

“I started to despair and thought we would never find the answer,” she said. NASA* Caltech Perseverance Project Scientist Ken Farley in Pasadena. “But then our PIXL instrument got a good look at a rock cut and it all became clear: the crystals inside are irrefutable evidence.”

NASA rover on Mars: “Perseverance” clarifies the question that drove researchers to despair

The finding of a NASA research team, which evaluated data from the latest NASA rover: The subsurface on which “persistence” has stood and has been driving since landing on Mars is likely to have formed in red-hot magma. Analyzing a rock, the Perseverance rover’s PIXL instrument showed that the rock, nicknamed “Brac” by the researchers, is composed of an unusual abundance of large olivine crystals encased in pyroxene crystals.

Future NASA mission will take Mars rocks to Earth

“A good geology student will tell you that this kind of texture forms rocks as crystals grow and settle in slowly cooling magma—for example, a thick lava flow, lava lake, or magma chamber, Farley explains. After this, the stone was replaced with water several times.

“It has thus become a treasure trove that will enable future researchers to date events at Jezero Crater,” Farley says. The researcher also suspects that this will help better understand a time when water on the surface of Jezero Crater was not uncommon and will reveal the early history of Mars. It is still unclear whether the rock studied cooled in a lava lake at the surface or in an underground chamber that later came to the surface through erosion.

The Mars rover Perseverance packs a piece of rock into a container to be returned to Earth on future missions. Then scientists on Earth can use instruments that are too big to be taken to Mars in their research. NASA’s rover is to fill a total of 43 small containers with soil samples from Mars, six of which have already been filled and sealed. It contains, among other things, Martian material for which the rover has drilled, but is also a sample of the Martian atmosphere.

NASA: Mars rover “Perseverance” has detected organic compounds

Another instrument of the Mars rover “Perseverance” has also provided research on Earth with fresh data: Sherlock has detected organic compounds. NASA said in a statement that this does not automatically mean that life ever existed in Jezero Crater. There are both biological and non-biological mechanisms by which organic compounds are formed and NASA’s rover “Curiosity” discovered organic matter at its landing site in Gale Crater,

“What Sherlock adds to the story is its ability to map the spatial distribution of organic matter in rocks and correlate them with the minerals found there,” explains Sherlock researcher Luther Beagle of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In this way, researchers can better understand the environment in which the organic compounds were formed.

The fact that organic compounds were found in stones at Jezero and Gale Craters means that potential biosignatures – that is, signs of past or present life – have also been preserved. “It’s a question that probably won’t be solved until samples are brought to Earth, but the conservation of organic compounds is very exciting,” Beagle said. “When these Martian samples arrive on Earth, they will be a source of scientific research for many years to come.” (tab) *There is an offer from fr.de ippn.media,