Jezero Crater was once a large lake and river delta.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, INDIANA — The American Space Agency’s (NASA) Perseverance rover has been on Planet Mars on February 18 last. The second year on Planet Mars should be more action -packed than the first.
A car-sized Perseverance Rover lands inside Kawah Lake Mars on February 18, 2021, tasked with searching for signs of ancient Red Planet life and collecting dozens of samples to return to Earth in the future.
The 45 -kilometer -wide Jezero Crater is a great place to do such work on Mars. Jezero Crater in the past there were large lakes and river deltas.
On Earth, river deltas are excellent at preserving carbon-containing organic compounds—the building blocks of life as we know it. Perseverance’s managing scientists are eager to examine the Jezero delta. They should start doing it in the coming months.
“For the second year mission, we’re really excited to finally get to the delta,” Perseverance science team member Briony Horgan, a professor of planetary science at Purdue University, said in a video released by the school this week. SpaceMonday (21/2/2022).
“The delta at Jezero Crater is the reason we chose the landing site, and we hope to reach it later this spring,” Horgan said.
“Once we’re there, we’ll be able to look at the ancient lake bottoms that once filled Jezero for signs of ancient microbial life, and we plan to spend the whole next year exploring ancient lake deposits and ancient river deposits that lie within the delta, ” he said.
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