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The Perseverance Mars rover collects rich organic matter samples at the Jezero crater

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NASA told him Mars Rover Perseverance Rock samples from the core were collected in an area that scientists have long considered a prime candidate for finding signs of ancient microbial life.

In an update, the team says their latest findings provide even more detail in the area, as explorers have taken four samples from an ancient river delta at the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater since July.

In total, the rover collected 12 masked rock samples.

The crater delta was formed about 3.5 billion years ago at the confluence of the Mars River and a lake.

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Delta sedimentary rocks are formed when particles of different sizes are deposited in the environment.

The NASA rover has positioned its working robotic arm around a rocky outcrop called “Skinner Ridge” in the Jezero Crater on Mars. Consisting of multiple images, this mosaic shows layered sedimentary rocks in front of cliffs in the delta, as well as one of the sites where the rover scraped a circular patch to analyze the rock formations.
(Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.)


During his first scientific expedition, explorers explored the bottom of the crater, finding igneous rocks.

“We chose Jezero Crater for persistence to explore because we thought it had the best chance of providing a scientifically excellent sample – and now we know we sent the rover to the right place,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA Associate Science Administrator. in Washington. in the current situation. “These first two science campaigns have resulted in an astonishing diversity of samples returning to Earth through the Mars Sample Return Campaign.”

The deltas, with their various sedimentary rocks, are in stark contrast to the igneous rocks – formed by the crystallization of magma – found in the floor of the holePerseverance project scientist Ken Farley said, This alignment gives us a rich understanding of the geological history after the formation of the crater and the various samples. We find for example grains and rocks that carry sandstone. Fragments generated away from the Jezero crater – and clayey rocks that contain interesting organic compounds “.

NASA’s Perseverance rover collected rock samples for a possible future return to Earth from the two locations seen in this image of Mars’s Jezero Crater: “Wildcat Ridge” (bottom left) and “Skinner Ridge” (top right) ).
(Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS.)


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One of these is “Wildcat Ridge”, which probably formed billions of years ago.

Perseverance partially eroded the surface of the rock so that the area could be analyzed by scanning the habitable environment with the Raman & Luminescence for Organic Materials and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument.

NASA claims champion Sherlock It was found that they are characterized by a class of organic molecules spatially related to sulfate minerals.

Consisting of several images of NASA’s Mars rover, this mosaic shows a rocky outcrop called “Wildcat Ridge,” where the rover dug a rocky core and scraped a circular patch to study the rock’s composition.
(Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS.)


The presence of organic molecules, which can contain elements such as sulfur, is a potential bio-signature.

While the Perseverance and Curiosity of Mars has already found evidence of organic matter, the discovery was made in an area where sediments and salt were deposited in a lake under conditions where life would have existed.

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“In the past, the sand, silt and salt that now make up the Wildcat Ridge specimen were deposited under conditions where life would have thrived,” Farley explains. “The fact that organic matter is found in such sedimentary rocks – which are known to preserve fossils of ancient life on Earth – is important. However noisy as our onboard instruments are, further conclusions about what’s in the Wildcat Ridge samples will have to wait until they are brought back to Earth for in-depth study as part of the Mars sample return campaign. ‘agency”.

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