Is life possible on Mars? It is one of the most barren and dark planets. People, unprotected, would be dead in seconds. But the prospect of life on Mars has always been an intriguing idea. However, it has remained a mystery and keeps scientists busy trying to find plausible evidence and answers to prove that life once existed on it. That’s why NASA’s Perseverance rover is on the hunt for signs of ancient life on the red planet. So far, the Perseverance rover has collected several samples of organic matter from Jezero Crater. Scientists hypothesize that a river once flowed into a lake in Mars’ Jezero Crater and deposited boulders and sediments in a fan pattern billions of years ago. The best sites on Mars to look for possible evidence of prehistoric microbial life are thought to be deltas. In a shared video from NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, Rachel Kronyak, a member of the Perseverance science team, shared the most detailed images of the Martian surface to date consisting of 2.5 billion pixels created from 1,118 individual Mastcam-Z images . Currently, the Perseverance rover is closely monitoring the sedimentary rocks of the river delta. These rocks, like those on Earth, were formed when areas were once covered with water and carried countless particles of various sizes, which eventually settled. The floor of the Jezero crater was examined during the rover’s first science expedition, and there it found igneous rocks, which form deep beneath magma or as a result of volcanic activity on the surface.
More about NASA’s Perseverance mission to Mars
Launched on July 30, 2020, the primary goal of NASA’s Perseverance mission to Mars is astrobiology, meaning the search for signs of ancient microbial life on the red planet. The mission’s rover will discern the planet’s geology and past climate, paving the way for future human exploration of the Red Planet. It will also be the first mission to collect and transport Martian rock and regolith, which include broken rock and dust, back to Earth.
