The Perseverance rover is exploring Mars for NASA – and soon after its arrival, it has raised important questions.
Pasadena/Frankfurt – NASA’s rover “Persevering” faces a major mission on Mars. Among other things, he had to look for signs of early microbial life on the Red Planet and research the geology and climate of Mars in the past. The rover has answered an important question with the first images sent back to Earth, NASA has now announced. Records and accompanying studies have been published in science magazines.
“This is a key observation that convinces us once and for all that there is a lake and river delta in the Jezero crater,” scientist Nicholas Mangold, lead author of the study, said in a message from NASA. Today, the Jezero crater, where Perseverance landed in February 2021, is very dry. But once the water was there, experts concluded from the Martian rover’s footage. So Jezero Crater 3.7 billion years ago was a lake fed by a small river.
NASA spacecraft reveals that Jezero Crater on Mars was once a lake connected to a river
The footage also showed experts that there must have been a major flood in the lake. According to researchers who worked with Mangold on their study, these floods carried large boulders for several kilometers along rivers and deposited them in lakes where they are still found today.
You imagine the crater of Jezero on Mars being studied according to the latest findings.
© NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / LPG
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NASA rover ‘Persevere’: The opening was no accident
It was no coincidence that “endurance” hit the mark shortly after his arrival. The landing site at Jezero Crater was chosen by NASA experts because it was suspected that there was once water flowing there. Records from earlier Mars orbiters showed that the Jezero crater looked like a dry lake connected to a river delta. “Rover has solved one of the greatest mysteries without going anywhere,” said planetary scientist Benjamin Weiss. “Until we got there, the question was always: Did the crater ever become a lake?”
Mars experts believe that water on the surface of the Red Planet once existed, but it dried up about 3.5 billion years ago. At that time, according to the current state of research, Mars lost its magnetic field and gradually lost its atmosphere. Another theory suggests that Mars is too small to hold water permanently.
NASA plans: “Perseverance” rover is to visit former river delta
Meanwhile, the Perseverance rover has covered some 2.6 kilometers into the Jezero crater, and if all goes according to plan, you’ll also see the rocks it picks up from a distance to solve the lake’s mysteries up close. The rover is planning to head to the former river delta to take soil samples there. Experts believe that sediment from the former lake may contain traces of previous life in the water. Therefore, “persistence” must also collect such samples. “Now we have the opportunity to look for fossils,” explains Tanya Bosak of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Soil samples collected by Perseverance will be stored by the rover on the Martian surface, and future missions will return samples from Mars to Earth, where they can be directly examined by scientists. “It will take time to get to the stones we hope to find traces of life. This is a marathon with great potential,” said Boussac.
This is what the Jezero crater looks like on Mars today. NASA’s “Perseverance” spacecraft has landed on a dry lake.
© NASA/JPL
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NASA’s “Perseverent” rover was supposed to send soil samples from Mars to Earth
Until then, however, research will have to rely on “persistence” and NASA’s older Curiosity rover, which conducts research in different regions of Mars. “A better understanding of the Jezero crater is key to understanding hydrological changes in the area,” said persistence scientist Sanjeev Gupta in a NASA statement. “This could provide valuable information about why the entire planet is drying up.”
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Weiss also has another hope: It’s possible that we’ll find a time in the rock when the crater “switches from a habitable Earth-like environment to this crumbling desert,” he explained. This bed of ruins can serve as a record of this transition. We’ve never seen it anywhere else on Mars. (tab)
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