[ad_1]
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has begun its search for evidence of ancient microbial life.
The spacecraft, which landed on the Red Planet in February, tested a series of instruments on its 7-foot robotic arm.
NASA’S PERSEVERANCE MARS ROVER TAKES PHOTOS OF UNIQUE ROCK FORMATION IN “THE OLD LAKE BED”
In a statement released Monday, NASA said Perseverance had started its probe of Martian rocks and sediments, testing detectors and capturing its first scientific readings.
The rover will use x-rays and ultraviolet light to examine rocks in addition to zooming in for “close-ups” of surfaces.
PIXL, one of seven instruments aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, is equipped with LED lights surrounding its aperture to take pictures of rocky targets in the dark. Thanks to artificial intelligence, PIXL uses images to determine how far it is from a target to be scanned.
(NASA / JPL-Caltech)
The agency said Perseverance’s PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) – an X-ray instrument – had already shown “surprisingly strong scientific results” in its tests, including determining the composition of Martian dust. attached to a small calibration target onboard Perseverance.
“We got our best compositional analysis of Martian dust before it even looked at the rock,” said Abigail Allwood, PIXL principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE DELIVERS THE FIRST IMAGES SINCE STOPPING
Perseverance remains in the area around Jezero Crater – NASA’s initial landing site and a crater lake billions of years ago.
By working with the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) spectrometer – which uses an ultraviolet laser to map mineralogy and organic compounds – and its WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering) camera, NASA scientists have combined maps of the three instruments.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this close-up of a rocky target dubbed “Madman” using its WATSON camera at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. The image was taken on July 11, 2021, the 139th Martian, or sol, day of the mission.
(NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS)
The first images from WATSON have already provided data on Martian rocks, according to NASA, including information regarding colors, grain size and the presence of “cement” between the grains.
Ultimately, the Perseverance rover will collect and cache the rock and regolith which will be returned as part of a joint mission with ESA (European Space Agency).
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
However, all geological information discovered before this date will be essential to understanding the history of the crater and “putting any possible indication of life into context”.
“March 2020, in my opinion, is the best opportunity we will have in our lifetime to answer this question,” said Kenneth Williford, associate scientist for the Perseverance project.
[ad_2]
Source link