Mars: Perseverance collects samples rich in organic compounds

The crater samples on Mars are rich in organic compounds

The persistence tool SHERLOC (Survey of Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organic and Chemical Materials) found that the rocks are teeming with organic matter, which is spatially related to sulfate-containing minerals called sulfates.

“This correlation indicates that when the lake was evaporating, both sulfate and organic matter were deposited, preserved, and concentrated in this area,” Sherlock scientist Sunanda Sharma of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, USA, said during the gathering.

“On Earth, sulfate deposits are known to preserve organic matter and can hold signs of life, which are called biosignatures. This makes these samples and this set of observations among the most interesting things we’ve done so far on the mission and fills in some of the excitement I’ve had. The team when we got close to the front of the delta.”

It will be difficult to prove the biosignature in samples from Mars

Farley and Sharma emphasized, however, that these Martian compounds cannot be considered biomarkers. Organic matter can be created and placed by purely geological processes and the data collected by Perseverance does not yet say enough about the source scenario to make a connection.

In fact, it would be very difficult for the mission team to make such a determination using only rover observations, according to Farley, given the complexity of the mission and the burden of proving that the alleged detection of alien life should suffice. This reality is embodied in the perseverance mission design.

Samples are expected to reach Earth in 2033

If all goes according to plan, the samples collected by Perseverance will be sent to Earth as early as 2033 via a joint NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) campaign.

Once the samples are on our planet, scientists around the world will be able to examine them using a variety of instruments, many of them larger and more complex than anything you can fit on a Mars rover.

Perseverance holds 43 tube samples, 15 of which have already been closed. 12 contain excavated rock cores, one of which is an atmospheric sample (the result of a persistent first attempt at rock sampling, which did not go as planned), and two of which are ‘witness tubes’.

The mission team will use witness tubes to determine what materials, if any, are present in the Martian samples that could be contaminants of Earth. A typical return plan calls for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) and a NASA-made lander, which are scheduled to launch to Mars in late 2027 and early 2028, respectively.

Perseverance will go to the rover and deposit its samples, which will be launched from the surface of Mars on a rocket carried by the rover. ERO will pick up samples in orbit around Mars and bring them back to Earth.

According to NASA officials, the rover, which landed the small Ingenuity helicopter demonstrating the technology in February 2021, should remain healthy enough in late 2020 to do sample delivery work.

That claim is based on the Curiosity rover, which shares the same basic body plan and nuclear power system as Perseverance and is still powerful inside the Red Planet’s Gale Crater more than a decade after it landed.

But if the attempt fails, NASA and the European Space Agency have a Plan B. Perseverance takes two samples from each rock you collect, one to keep on board and one to store in one or more “sediments” at Jezero.

Therefore, if the perseverance is unable to deliver samples, the return probe will land near the sample depots and collect the tubes one by one using two helicopters.

These helicopters will be launched aboard the probe and will be very similar to the Creativity plane, which is still going strong after 31 flights to Mars. The sampler choppers have to be a bit bulkier than the creative, as they will be equipped with wheels to help them roll in the sample tubes.

The Perseverance team has already selected a potential site for the first sample deposit – a nice flat portion of Jezero which would be a safe landing site.

On October 19, team members will hold a “go or no-go” meeting that will determine whether they’re ready to start dropping sample tubes there, NASA Planetary Science Division Chief Laurie Glaes said. If the decision is to “go,” Perseverance will store 10 to 11 tube samples on site, a process that will likely take about two months to complete.

with information from outer space

Featured Image: Merlin74 / Shutterstock

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