NASA’s perseverance rover is deepening in the geological past of Mars as it begins to grind on the rock surfaces of the red planet to expose material that could contain clues about the old environment and habitability of the planet.
Earlier this month, the perseverance rover used its abrasion tool to extract the upper layer of a rocky rocky outcrop nicknamed “Kenmore”, revealing a fresh surface for the foreground analysis of the composition and history of the rock. The procedure, which implies a combination of mechanical grinding and cleaning gas, allows scientists to study rocks that have not been altered by wind, radiation or dust for billions of years.
“Kenmore was a strange and little cooperative rock,” said Ken Farley, an attached scientist of the perseverance project, in a statement. “Visually, it looked good: the type of rock in which we could obtain a good abrasion and perhaps, if the science was correct, make a collection of samples. But during abrasion, it vibrated everywhere and small pieces they broke. Fortunately, we managed to get enough below the surface to advance with an analysis.”
The recent abrasion marks a change in the approach of the exploration and sampling rover mainly to more detailed in situ. Compared to its predecessors, perseverance uses an advanced abrasion drill and a tool for eliminating gaseous dust, or RDB, which applies five nitrogen pumps to eliminate samples in a way that represents less risk of contamination. By way of comparison, the previous rovers used a brush to sweep the remains, or tailings, out of the way.
After completing an abrasion, the scientific instruments of perseverance are deployed to investigate the exposed rock. The Rover’s Watson.
“The tailings showed us that this rock contains clay minerals, which contain water as hydroxide molecules linked with iron and magnesium, relatively typical of the old Mars clay minerals.” Cathy Quantin-Nataf, a member of the Supercam team, said in the statement. “The abrasion spectra gave us the chemical composition of the rock, showing improvements in iron and magnesium.”
Perseverance is also based on its Sherloc instruments (habitable environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) and Pixl instruments (Planetary instrument for X -ray Litochemistra of X -ray) to help determine the mineral content, chemical composition and potential signs of past water activity or even microbial life. In fact, these tools not only found more evidence of clay, but also detected feldspar, a common mineral in the earth’s crust, as well as on the moon and other rocky planets. The team also found, for the first time, manganese hydroxide in the specimens observed.
“The data we now get from rocks like Kenmore will help future missions so they don’t have to think about rare and non -cooperative rocks,” Farley said. “On the other hand, they will have a much better idea if you can easily lead about it, try it, separate hydrogen and oxygen contained inside fuel, or if it would be appropriate to use as a construction material for a habitat.”
The work is being carried out in the Jezero de Marte crater, a 28 -mile wide basin (45 kilometers wide) that was once a delta and a river lake. Scientists believe that the region contains some of the best preserved records of Mars’s wet past, so it is a main location to look for biosignures or indicators of ancient life. Kenmore represents the 30th Marciana Roca that perseverance has studied with such a good detail.
Perseverance also continues to collect samples of rock nucleus, which are being sealed in tubes and stored for a possible future return to the Earth through the planned campaign of return of the Mars sample (MSR), although the NASA Budget proposal of the NASA of the NASA of the Trump administration recently suggests cutting the MSR program completely.
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