Washington (AFP) – Mars rover “Perseverance” has begun drilling on the surface of the Red Planet. “Sampling has begun!” NASA employee Thomas Zurbuchen said on Friday. US space agency NASA released footage next to the rover showing a small hill with a hole in the middle.
The well is the first step in the sampling process which is expected to take approximately eleven days. The aim is to look for signs of ancient microbial life that may have remained intact in the debris of the ancient lake. Scientists also hope to gain a better understanding of the geological conditions on Mars.
“Perseverance” left Florida a year earlier and landed in Jezero Crater on Mars in February. Scientists suspect that about 3.5 billion years ago there was a deep lake, which emptied and refilled several times over time and provided conditions suitable for biological life.
However, it will take years for scientists to analyze the samples themselves: NASA is not planning a mission with the European Space Agency (ESA) to collect samples and return them to Earth until the 2030s.
Image: © NASA / JPL-Caltech / AFP Handout / Rover’s first Mars drilling “Perseverance”
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