Mars Exploration News  
MARSDAILY
Bringing Mars rocks back to Earth
by The Conversation
Tempe AZ (The Conversation) Feb 05, 2021

File illustration showing a sample tube left by Perseverance for later collection and return to Earth.

Jim Bell is a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University and has worked on a number of Mars missions. On Feb. 18, NASA's Mars 2020 mission will be arriving at the red planet, and hopefully will place the Perseverance Rover on the surface. Bell is the primary investigator leading a team in charge of one of the camera systems on Perseverance.

What's the goal of this mission?
What we're looking for is evidence of past life, either direct chemical or organic signs in the composition and the chemistry of rocks, or textural evidence in the rock record. The environment of Mars is extremely harsh compared to the Earth, so we're not really looking for evidence of current life. Unless something actually gets up and walks in front of the cameras, we're really not going to find that.

Where is the Perseverance Rover landing to look for ancient life?
There was a three- or four-year process that involved the entire global community of Mars and planetary science researchers to figure out where to send this rover. We chose a crater called Jezero. Jezero has a beautiful river delta in it, preserved from an ancient river that flowed down into that crater and deposited sediments. This is kind of like the delta at the end of the Mississippi River in Louisiana which is depositing sediments very gently into the Gulf of Mexico.

On Earth, this shallow water is a very gentle environment where organic molecules and fossils can actually be gently buried and preserved in very fine-grained mudstones. If a Martian delta operates the same way, then it's a great environment for preserving evidence of things that were flowing in that water that came from the ancient highlands above the crater.

There's lots of things we don't know, but there was liquid water there. There were heat sources - there were active volcanoes 2, 3, 4 billion years ago on Mars - and there are impact craters from asteroids and comets dumping lots of heat into the ground as well as organic molecules. It's a very short list of places in the solar system that meet those constraints, and Jezero is one of those places. It's one of the best places that we think to go to do this search for life.

What scientific tools is Perseverance carrying?
The Perseverance Rover looks a lot like Curiosity on the outside because it's made from something like 90% spare parts from Curiosity - that's how NASA could afford this mission. Curiosity has a pair of cameras - one wide angle, one telephoto.

In Perseverance, we're sending similar cameras, but with zoom technology so we can zoom from wide angle to telephoto with both cameras - the "Z" in Mastcam-Z stands for zoom. This allows us to get great stereo images. Just like our left eye and our right eye build a three-dimensional image in our brain, the zoom cameras on Perserverance are a left eye and a right eye. With this, we can build a three-dimensional image back on Earth when we get those images.

3D images allow us to do a whole range of things scientifically. We want to understand the topography of Mars in much more detail than we've been able to in the past. We want to put the pieces of the delta geology story together not just with two-dimensional, spatial information, but with height as well as texture. And we want to make 3D maps of the landing site.

Our engineering and driving colleagues really need that information too. These 3D images will help them decide where to drive by helping to identify obstacles and slopes and trenches and rocks and stuff like that, allowing them to drive the rover much deeper into places than they would have been able to otherwise.

And finally, we're going to make really cool 3D views of our landing site to share with the public, including movies and flyovers.

What else is different about this mission?
Perseverance is intended to be the first part of a robotic sample return mission from Mars. So instead of just drilling into the surface like the Curiosity Rover does, Perseverance will drill and core into the surface and cache those little cores into tubes about the size of a dry-erase marker. It will then put those tubes onto the surface for a future mission later this decade to pick up and then bring back to the Earth.

Perseverance won't come back to the Earth, but the plan is to bring the samples that we collect back.

In the meantime, we'll be doing all of the science that any great rover mission would do. We are going to characterize the site, explore the geology and measure the atmospheric and weather properties.

This is where it gets a little less certain, because these are all ideas and missions in the works. NASA and the European Space Agency are collaborating on a concept to build and launch a lander that will send a little fetch rover that goes and gets the little tubes, picks them up and brings them back to the lander. Waiting on the lander would be a small rocket called a Mars Ascent Vehicle, or MAV. Once the samples are loaded into the MAV, it launches them into Mars orbit.

Then you've got this grapefruit- to soccer-ball-sized canister up there, and NASA and the Europeans are collaborating on an orbiter that will search for that canister, capture it and then rocket it back to the Earth, where it will land in the Utah desert. What could possibly go wrong?

If successful, that'll be the first time we've done that from Mars. The scientific tools on the rovers are good, but nothing like the labs back on Earth. Bringing those samples back is going to be absolutely critical to getting the most out of the samples.


Related Links
Mars 2020 mission
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


MARSDAILY
Tianwen 1 probe set to enter Mars orbit before New Year
Beijing (XNA) Feb 04, 2021
China's Tianwen 1 Mars probe is set to enter the orbit of the red planet around Feb 10, two days before Chinese New Year, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the nation's leading space contractor. The State-owned conglomerate said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that the spacecraft will conduct a "braking" operation to decelerate and make sure it will be captured by Martian gravity. Tianwen 1 has flown for 196 days and has traveled more than 450 million kilometers ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.



Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

MARSDAILY
Lunar traffic to pick up as NASA readies for robotic commercial moon deliveries

On nights before a full moon, people go to bed later and sleep less

Airbus studies "Moon Cruiser" concept for ESA's cis-lunar transfer vehicle

Welding underway on Orion indended for landing astronauts on the Moon

MARSDAILY
Three generations dedicated to space program

China's space station core module, cargo craft pass factory review

China's space tracking ship completes satellite launch monitoring

Key modules for China's next space station ready for launch

MARSDAILY
NASA's Psyche mission moves forward, passing key milestone

OSIRIS-REx mission set for May departure from Bennu back to Earth

Oldest carbonates in the solar system

Why do some regions on the dwarf planet Ceres appear blue

MARSDAILY
Peering at the Surface of a Nearby Moon

A Hot Spot on Jupiter

The 15th Anniversary of New Horizons Leaving Earth

Juno mission expands into the future

MARSDAILY
Saturn's Tilt Caused By Its Moons

Astronomers estimate Titan's largest sea is 1,000 feet deep

SwRI models point to a potentially diverse metabolic menu at Enceladus

MARSDAILY
A fine-grained view of dust storms

Drone and landsat imagery shows long-term change in vegetation cover along intermittent river

MDA announces RADARSAT-2 continuity mission

Extreme UV laser shows generation of atmospheric pollutant

MARSDAILY
NASA completes spacewalk to finish power system upgrades

For billionaire Jared Isaacman, the space tourism era begins

NASA will pay $500,000 for good ideas on food production in space

Out-of-this-world wine back in Bordeaux after space station trip

MARSDAILY
Could game theory help discover intelligent alien life

TESS discovers four exoplanets orbiting a nearby sun-like star

Peering inside the birthplaces of planets orbiting the smallest stars

First six-star system where all six stars undergo eclipses









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.