Mars' rusty red surface may have given it its famous “Red Planet” status, but thousands of white rocks also appear to be strangely scattered across the Martian floor. NASA perseverance The rover, a robotic geologist exploring Jezero Crater since early 2021, baffled scientists when it presented images of more than 4,000 light-colored, pebble-sized rocks scattered across the crater floor.
“These are very unusual rocks, and we're trying to figure out what's going on,” said Candice Bedford, a planetary scientist at Purdue University in Indiana and a member of the research team. Mars The 2020 science team said at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LSPC) last month.
This announcement comes as NASA An architectural review for returning Martian rocks to Earth is concluding as part of the agency's ambitious Mars Sample Return (MSR) program.
Related: NASA's Perseverance rover captures a 360-degree view of Jezero Crater on Mars (video)
The white rocks pictured are what scientists refer to as “floaters,” meaning they have been removed and moved from their original environment; Some are smooth with pits while others appear to be an amalgamation of multiple layers. Preliminary analyses, conducted using instruments on board the rover, revealed that the rocks are dehydrated, not only in water content, but also in other minerals including iron, magnesium, calcium and sodium. “I'm exhausted on a lot of things,” Bedford said.
The team is particularly interested in the origins of these unusual rocks, as their sources can reveal clues about the Red Planet's past, including specifically when Jezero Crater, which we consider to be a barren stretch of Earth today, was flooded. Despite discovering more than 4,000 such rocks, the Perseverance rover has not been able to see even a hint of what is known as an “outcrop” associated with the rock, which is essentially bedrock with similar properties that protrudes from the surface of Mars.
The dried nature of the rocks suggests that they were heated and metamorphosed either by lava flows or… asteroid The relics were found elsewhere on Mars and later dumped on the crater floor, Bedford said. Whatever the specific process, she and her team suspect it occurred relatively recently in terms of Jezero Crater's geologic history.
The Perseverance rover, which has traveled more than 15 miles (24.8 kilometers) since arriving at Mars, celebrated 1,000 days of science last December, which also marked the official completion of the mission it was originally designed to do. It has now filled 26 of the 43 Martian rock sample tubes, LPSC mission team members shared. “Each sample contains countless grains that we can study forever, basically,” said Benjamin Weiss, a professor of planetary science at MIT and a member of the Mars 2020 team.
As part of a Bonus mission Perseverance is slowly making its way toward the rim of Jezero Crater, said Bedford, which launched this spring, and its long-distance camera has already imaged more of the lighter-colored rocks scattered in that area as well.
Go west! I navigate around difficult rocky terrain on my way to the rim of Jezero Crater. Follow my travels: https://t.co/PWbwFLzKre pic.twitter.com/3dkCyW6vzmJanuary 12, 2024
However, all these puzzling rocks aren't the only reason scientists are keen to get the rover to the crater's rim and perhaps beyond. There, they believe there is a unique geology that has not yet been found within the crater floor. This includes pre-Jezero rocks that may contain records of Martian crust formation and early climate. It may even hold evidence of biosignatures.
Scientists are currently marking a variety of interesting sampling sites while mapping the ridge itself in more detail, said Lisa Mayhew, a research associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Of interest to scientists is a terrane adjacent to Jezero Crater called Nili Planum, whose rocks they believe formed in warm conditions during a period when life likely evolved, if it existed on the now barren world. Sampling these rocks “would provide tremendous added scientific value to the cache already present on Perseverance,” Mayhew said.
However, this scientific value can only be fully realized after these rocks are returned to them Land.
Scientists need to determine their timeline using equipment on Earth, without which they would not have a precise timeline for when the Red Planet was habitable and when it became dry. “It is no exaggeration to say that it will revolutionize our understanding of Mars,” Weiss said.
Questions remain about the MSR program, which is led by NASA, including when and how the agency plans to return collected samples to Earth. Last October, NASA tasked the MIRT with evaluating alternative approaches to MSR after an independent review board (IRB) found that the current architecture would lead to cost and schedule overruns.
“A lot of work has already been completed,” said Meenakshi Wadhwa, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University and principal scientist at MSR. She said a MIRT recommendation report for a new approach was expected by the end of March, followed by a revised plan and budget by NASA sometime in April.
The agency's budget proposal for fiscal year 2025, Posted on March 11, allocated $2.7 billion for planetary science but MSR funding remained “TBD.” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told reporters at the conference that NASA's budget for this year and next will be announced in April after the MIRT review is completed. time.
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