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The instrument package known as the SuperCam aboard the Perseverance Mars rover has collected its first samples in the hunt for past life on the Red Planet, scientists from the mission said on Wednesday.
The return to Earth in the years to come of the rocks and soil it recovers “will give scientists the holy grail of planetary exploration”, Jean-Yves le Gall, president of CNES, which mainly built the mobile observatory . , commented via a YouTube broadcast.
These “pieces of Mars”, he said, can “finally answer this fascinating and fundamental question: has there ever been life anywhere other than on Earth?”
After seven months in space, NASA’s Perseverance rover gently touched down on Martian soil last month and returned black-and-white images revealing the rocky fields of Jezero Crater, just north of the equator. Of March.
“The essential component of this astrobiology mission is SuperCam,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, deputy director of the science missions directorate at NASA.
Mounted on the mast of the rover, the shoebox-sized gadget is filled with spectrometers, a laser and an audio recording device to analyze the chemistry, mineralogy and molecular composition of the famous red surface of Mars.
SuperCam’s laser can zap objects smaller than a pencil point as far as seven meters (20 feet) away and allows observation of points beyond the reach of the rover’s robotic arm.
“The laser is only capable of removing surface dust from a distance, giving all of its instruments a clear view of targets,” said Roger Wiens, engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and principal investigator at SuperCam.
The mission suffered a serious accident before takeoff, revealed Scott Robinson of LANL, who said more than 500 engineers and scientists contributed to the project.
“The optics of the mast were destroyed in a freak accident just four months before delivery,” he explained. “The team went to great lengths to put together spare parts to rebuild the telescope from scratch.”
The accident turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
A ‘freak accident’
While reassembling the unit, engineers discovered what Robinson described as a “Hubble-like” flaw in the original rearview mirror.
Shortly after the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, operators realized that the main mirror in the observatory had an aberration – later corrected – that affected the clarity of the images.
Scientists believe that around 3.5 billion years ago, the crater where Perseverance landed was home to a river that flowed into a deep lake, depositing sediment in a fan-shaped delta.
The rover is tasked with collecting more than two dozen rock and soil samples in sealed tubes, which will be sent back to Earth in the 2030s for analysis.
SuperCam also takes close-up photos of rock targets on Mars. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / LANL / CNES / CNRS / ASU / MSSS)
About the size and weight of an SUV, Perseverance is equipped with a two-meter (seven-foot) robotic arm, 19 cameras, two microphones, and other cutting-edge instruments.
A small helicopter drone tucked under its belly will attempt the first powered flight to another planet in a few weeks.
An on-board instrument is designed to produce oxygen from Mars’ predominantly carbon dioxide atmosphere, which would greatly facilitate human habitation.
Perseverance is the fifth rover to land on Mars, all from NASA. The feat was first accomplished in 1997.
Its main mission lasts a little over two years, but the rover could remain operational well beyond.
© Agence France-Presse
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