Collecting samples to return to Earth in the future is one of twoa main task of Perseverance. Perseverance also has the task of hunting for signs of ancient Martian life.
Mission team members say the 45-kilometer-wide Jezero holds a lake and river delta in the past. So, scientists think the location is a good place to hunt ancient life.
On Earth, river deltas are good at preserving such signs of life as we know it, as well as the basic building blocks of life, organic compounds that contain carbon. The members of the Perseverance team are eager to explore the remnants of the Jezero delta, and they plan to do so soon.
“I’m planning to get one more sample here before heading to the ancient river delta,” the rover team said in a tweet.
The Perseverance team planned the rover’s route with the help of Ingenuity, a 1.8 kg helicopter that landed with Perseverance last year. Ingenuity carried out its original mission, a five-flight technology demonstration campaign, and is now searching the terrain for the rover in an extended mission. Ingenuity has flown 20 times on Mars to date and is still going strong.
If all goes to plan, Perseverance will eventually collect and store several dozen samples of the Red Planet. This material will be brought to Earth, possibly as early as 2031, by a joint NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) mission campaign.
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