The Viking 1 lander arrived on the Martian surface 46 years ago to investigate the planet. It dropped down into what was thought to be an ancient outflow channel. Now, a team of researchers believes they’ve found evidence of an ancient megatsunami that swept across the planet billions of years ago, less than 600 miles from where Viking landed.
In a new paper published today in Scientific Reports, a team identified a 68-mile-wide impact crater in Mars’ northern lowlands that they suspect is leftover from an asteroid strike in the planet’s ancient past.
“The simulation clearly shows that the megatsunami was enormous, with an initial height of approximately 250 meters, and highly turbulent,” said Alexis Rodriguez, a researcher at the Planetary Science Institute and lead author of the paper, in an email to Gizmodo. “Furthermore, our modeling shows some radically different behavior of the megatsunami to what we are accustomed to imagining.”
Rodriguez’s team studied maps of the Martian surface and found the large crater, now named Pohl. Based on Pohl’s position on previously dated rocks, the team believes the crater is about 3.4 billion years old—an extraordinarily long time ago, shortly after the first signs of life we know of appeared on Earth.
According to the research team’s models, the asteroid impact could have been so intense that material from the seafloor may have dislodged and been carried in the water’s debris flows. Based on the size of the crater, the team believes the impacting asteroid could have been 1.86 miles wide or 6 miles wide, depending on the amount of ground resistance the asteroid encountered.
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The impact could have released between 500,000 megatons and 13 million megatons of TNT energy (for comparison, the Tsar Bomba nuclear test was about 57 megatons of TNT energy.)
“A clear next step is to propose a landing site to investigate these deposits in detail to understand the ocean’s evolution and potential habitability,” Rodriguez said. “First, we would need a detailed geologic mapping of the area to reconstruct the stratigraphy. Then, we need to connect the surface modification history to specific processes through numerical modeling and analog studies, including identifying possible mud volcanoes and glacier landforms.”
Both lines of investigation are noble pursuits, but it may be some time before a new Mars lander gets off the ground. NASA is always juggling missions, but its main planetary focus in the future is Venus. The DAVINCI+ and Veritas missions would see two spacecraft arrive at the second planet from the Sun at the turn of the decade.
There are no plans for a future Mars lander, besides the Mars Sample Return mission, which will retrieve the rock core samples currently being extracted by the Perseverance rover on the western edge of the planet’s Jezero Crater.
NASA is canceling and delaying missions as it deals with a budget crunch, so exactly when the agency could turn its attention to the Pohl crater is unclear. With the InSight lander on its last legs, we will soon lose one of our best interrogators of the Martian interior.
More: Stunning New View of Mars Shows Where Ancient Flowing Water Once Carved Its Surface
NASA said its Mars Perseverance rover has collected rock-core samples in an area long considered by scientists to be a top candidate for finding signs of ancient microbial life.
In an update, the team said its latest findings provide greater detail of the region, with the rover taking four samples from an ancient river delta in the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater since July.
In total, the rover has collected 12 compelling rock samples.
The crater’s delta formed about 3.5 billion years ago at the convergence of a Martian river and a lake.
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The delta’s sedimentary rocks formed when particles of various sizes settled in the environment.
NASA’s Perseverance rover puts its robotic arm to work around a rocky outcrop called “Skinner Ridge” in Mars’ Jezero Crater. Composed of multiple images, this mosaic shows layered sedimentary rocks in the face of a cliff in the delta, as well as one of the locations where the rover abraded a circular patch to analyze a rock’s composition. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.)
During its first scientific campaign, the rover explored the crater’s floor, finding igneous rock.
“We picked the Jezero Crater for Perseverance to explore because we thought it had the best chance of providing scientifically excellent samples – and now we know we sent the rover to the right location,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science in Washington, said in a statement. “These first two science campaigns have yielded an amazing diversity of samples to bring back to Earth by the Mars Sample Return campaign.”
“The delta, with its diverse sedimentary rocks, contrasts beautifully with the igneous rocks – formed from crystallization of magma – discovered on the crater floor,” Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley said. “This juxtaposition provides us with a rich understanding of the geologic history after the crater formed and a diverse sample suite. For example, we found a sandstone that carries grains and rock fragments created far from Jezero Crater – and a mudstone that includes intriguing organic compounds.”
NASA’s Perseverance rover collected rock samples for possible return to Earth in the future from two locations seen in this image of Mars’ Jezero Crater: “Wildcat Ridge” (lower left) and “Skinner Ridge” (upper right). (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS.)
NASA FUNDED TECH THAT HELPS RELIEVE MENOPAUSE SYMPTOMS
One of those rocks is “Wildcat Ridge,” which likely formed billions of years ago.
Perseverance has abraded some surface of the rock so it could analyze the area with its Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument.
NASA said the SHERLOC samples were found to feature a class of organic molecules that are spatially correlated with those of sulfate minerals.
Composed of multiple images from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, this mosaic shows a rocky outcrop called “Wildcat Ridge,” where the rover extracted two rock cores and abraded a circular patch to investigate the rock’s composition. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS.)
The presence of organic molecules, which can contain elements like sulfur, is considered to be a potential biosignature.
While Perseverance and the Curiosity Mars rovers have found evidence or organics before, this detection was made in an area where sediment and salts were deposited into a lake under conditions in which life could have potentially existed.
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“In the distant past, the sand, mud and salts that now make up the Wildcat Ridge sample were deposited under conditions where life could potentially have thrived,” Farley explained. “The fact the organic matter was found in such a sedimentary rock – known for preserving fossils of ancient life here on Earth – is important. However, as capable as our instruments aboard Perseverance are, further conclusions regarding what is contained in the Wildcat Ridge sample will have to wait until it’s returned to Earth for in-depth study as part of the agency’s Mars Sample Return campaign.”
Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News Digital. You can find her on Twitter at @JuliaElenaMusto.
Using its WATSON camera, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie over a rock nicknamed “Rochette,” on September 10, 2021, the 198th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Two holes can be seen where the rover used its robotic arm to drill rock core samples. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Mars rover found that Jezero Crater’s floor is made up of volcanic rocks that have interacted with water.
Rock of Ages
Igneous rocks make excellent timekeepers. This is because crystals inside them record details about the precise moment they formed.
“One great value of the igneous rocks we collected is that they will tell us about when the lake was present in Jezero. We know it was there more recently than the igneous crater floor rocks formed,” said Ken Farley of Caltech, Perseverance’s project scientist and the lead author of the first of the new Science papers. “This will address some major questions: When was Mars’ climate conducive to lakes and rivers on the planet’s surface, and when did it change to the very cold and dry conditions we see today?”
Perseverance took this close-up of a rock target nicknamed “Foux” using its WATSON camera on July 11, 2021, the 139th Martian day, r sol, of the mission. The area within the camera is roughly 1.4 by 1 inches (3.5 centimeters by 2.6 centimeters). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
However, igneous rock isn’t ideal for preserving the potential signs of ancient microscopic life Perseverance is searching for, because of how it forms. On the other hand, determining the age of sedimentary rock can be challenging, especially when it contains rock fragments that formed at different times before the rock sediment was deposited. However, sedimentary rock often forms in watery environments suitable for life and is better at preserving ancient signs of life.
That’s why the sediment-rich river delta Perseverance has been exploring since April 2022 is so tantalizing to scientists. The rover has begun drilling and collecting core samples of sedimentary rocks there so that the Mars Sample Return campaign could potentially return them to Earth where they could be studied by powerful lab equipment too large to bring to Mars.
Mysterious Magma-Formed Rocks
A longstanding mystery on Mars is solved in a second paper published in Science. Mars orbiters spotted a rock formation filled with the mineral olivine years ago. Measuring roughly 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) – nearly the size of South Carolina – this formation extends from the inside edge of Jezero Crater into the surrounding region.
Scientists have offered various theories on why olivine is so plentiful over such a large area of the surface. These include meteorite impacts, volcanic eruptions, and sedimentary processes. Another theory is that the olivine formed deep underground from slowly cooling magma – molten rock – before being exposed over time by erosion.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover looks out at an expanse of boulders on the floor of Jezero Crater in front of a location nicknamed “Santa Cruz” on Feb. 16, 2022, the 353rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Yang Liu of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (
Unique Science Tools
The findings of science instruments that helped establish that igneous rocks cover the crater floor are detailed in the two Science Advances papers. The instruments include Perseverance’s SuperCam laser and a ground-penetrating radar called RIMFAX (Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment).
SuperCam is equipped with a rock-vaporizing laser that can zap a target as small as a pencil tip from up to 20 feet (7 meters) away. It analyzes the resulting vapor using a visible-light spectrometer to determine a rock’s chemical composition. During Perseverance’s first 10 months on Mars SuperCam zapped 1,450 points, helping scientists arrive at their conclusion about igneous rocks on the crater floor.
Illustration of the Mars Perseverance Rover using its SuperCam instrument to laser zap a rock in order to test what it’s made of. Credit: NASA
In addition, SuperCam used near-infrared light – it’s the first instrument on Mars with that capability – to find that water-altered minerals in the crater floor rocks. However, the alterations weren’t pervasive throughout the crater floor, according to the combination of laser and infrared observations.
“SuperCam’s data suggests that either these rock layers were isolated from Jezero’s lake water or that the lake existed for a limited duration,” said Roger Wiens, SuperCam’s principal investigator at Purdue University and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
RIMFAX marks another first. Although Mars orbiters carry ground-penetrating radars, no spacecraft on the surface of Mars have before Perseverance. Being on the surface, RIMFAX can provide unparalleled detail, and surveyed the crater floor as deep as 50 feet (15 meters).
Its high-resolution “radargrams” show rock layers unexpectedly inclined up to 15 degrees underground. Understanding how these rock layers are ordered can help scientists build a timeline of Jezero Crater’s formation.
“As the first such instrument to operate on the surface of Mars, RIMFAX has demonstrated the potential value of a ground-penetrating radar as a tool for subsurface exploration,” said Svein-Erik Hamran, RIMFAX’s principal investigator at the
The science team is thrilled by what they’ve found so far, but they’re even more excited about the science that lies ahead.
References:
“Compositionally and density stratified igneous terrain in Jezero crater, Mars” by Roger C. Wiens, Arya Udry, Olivier Beyssac, Cathy Quantin-Nataf, Nicolas Mangold, Agnès Cousin, Lucia Mandon, Tanja Bosak, Olivier Forni, Scott M. McLennan, Violaine Sautter, Adrian Brown, Karim Benzerara, Jeffrey R. Johnson, Lisa Mayhew, Sylvestre Maurice, Ryan B. Anderson, Samuel M. Clegg, Larry Crumpler, Travis S. J. Gabriel, Patrick Gasda, James Hall, Briony H. N. Horgan, Linda Kah, Carey Legett, Juan Manuel Madariaga, Pierre-Yves Meslin, Ann M. Ollila, Francois Poulet, Clement Royer, Shiv K. Sharma, Sandra Siljeström, Justin I. Simon, Tayro E. Acosta-Maeda, Cesar Alvarez-Llamas, S. Michael Angel, Gorka Arana, Pierre Beck, Sylvain Bernard, Tanguy Bertrand, Bruno Bousquet, Kepa Castro, Baptiste Chide, Elise Clavé, Ed Cloutis, Stephanie Connell, Erwin Dehouck, Gilles Dromart, Woodward Fischer, Thierry Fouchet, Raymond Francis, Jens Frydenvang, Olivier Gasnault, Erin Gibbons, Sanjeev Gupta, Elisabeth M. Hausrath, Xavier Jacob, Hemani Kalucha, Evan Kelly, Elise Knutsen, Nina Lanza, Javier Laserna, Jeremie Lasue, Stéphane Le Mouélic, Richard Leveille, Guillermo Lopez Reyes, Ralph Lorenz, Jose Antonio Manrique, Jesus Martinez-Frias, Tim McConnochie, Noureddine Melikechi, David Mimoun, Franck Montmessin, Javier Moros, Naomi Murdoch, Paolo Pilleri, Cedric Pilorget, Patrick Pinet, William Rapin, Fernando Rull, Susanne Schröder, David L. Shuster, Rebecca J. Smith, Alexander E. Stott, Jesse Tarnas, Nathalie Turenne, Marco Veneranda, David S. Vogt, Benjamin P. Weiss, Peter Willis, Kathryn M. Stack, Kenneth H. Williford, Kenneth A. Farley and The SuperCam Team, 25 August 2022, Science Advances. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo3399
“An olivine cumulate outcrop on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars” by Y. Liu, M. M. Tice, M. E. Schmidt, A. H. Treiman, T. V. Kizovski, J. A. Hurowitz, A. C. Allwood, J. Henneke, D. A. K. Pedersen, S. J. VanBommel, M. W. M. Jones, A. L. Knight, B. J. Orenstein, B. C. Clark, W. T. Elam, C. M. Heirwegh, T. Barber, L. W. Beegle, K. Benzerara, S. Bernard, O. Beyssac, T. Bosak, A. J. Brown, E. L. Cardarelli, D. C. Catling, J. R. Christian, E. A. Cloutis, B. A. Cohen, S. Davidoff, A. G. Fairén, K. A. Farley, D. T. Flannery, A. Galvin, J. P. Grotzinger, S. Gupta, J. Hall, C. D. K. Herd, K. Hickman-Lewis, R. P. Hodyss, B. H. N. Horgan, J. R. Johnson, J. L. Jørgensen, L. C. Kah, J. N. Maki, L. Mandon, N. Mangold, F. M. McCubbin, S. M. McLennan, K. Moore, M. Nachon, P. Nemere, L. D. Nothdurft, J. I. Núñez, L. O’Neil, C. M. Quantin-Nataf, V. Sautter, D. L Shuster, K. L. Siebach, J. I. Simon, K. P. Sinclair, K. M. Stack, A. Steele, J. D. Tarnas, N. J. Tosca, K. Uckert, A. Udry, L. A. Wade, B. P. Weiss, R. C. Wiens, K. H. Williford and M.-P. Zorzano, 25 August 2022, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abo2756
“Aqueously altered igneous rocks sampled on the floor of Jezero crater, Mars” by K. A. Farley, K. M. Stack, D. L. Shuster, B. H. N. Horgan, J. A. Hurowitz, J. D. Tarnas, J. I. Simon, V. Z. Sun, E. L. Scheller, K. R. Moore, S. M. McLennan, P. M. Vasconcelos, R. C. Wiens, A. H. Treiman, L. E. Mayhew, O. Beyssac, T. V. Kizovski, N. J. Tosca, K. H. Williford, L. S. Crumpler, L. W. Beegle, J. F. Bell, B. L. Ehlmann, Y. Liu, J. N. Maki, M. E. Schmidt, A. C. Allwood, H. E. F. Amundsen, R. Bhartia, T. Bosak, A. J. Brown, B. C. Clark, A. Cousin, O. Forni, T. S. J. Gabriel, Y. Goreva, S. Gupta, S.-E. Hamran, C. D. K. Herd, K. Hickman-Lewis, J. R. Johnson, L. C. Kah, P. B. Kelemen, K. B. Kinch, L. Mandon, N. Mangold, C. Quantin-Nataf, M. S. Rice, P. S. Russell, S. Sharma, S. Siljeström, A. Steele, R. Sullivan, M. Wadhwa, B. P. Weiss, A. J. Williams, B. V. Wogsland, P. A. Willis, T. A. Acosta-Maeda, P. Beck, K. Benzerara, S. Bernard, A. S. Burton, E. L. Cardarelli, B. Chide, E. Clavé, E. A. Cloutis, B. A. Cohen, A. D. Czaja, V. Debaille, E. Dehouck, A. G. Fairén, D. T. Flannery, S. Z. Fleron, T. Fouchet, J. Frydenvang, B. J. Garczynski, E. F. Gibbons, E. M. Hausrath, A. G. Hayes, J. Henneke, J. L. Jørgensen, E. M. Kelly, J. Lasue, S. Le Mouélic, J. M. Madariaga, S. Maurice, M. Merusi, P.-Y. Meslin, S. M. Milkovich, C. C. Million, R. C. Moeller, J. I. Núñez, A. M. Ollila, G. Paar, D. A. Paige, D. A. K. Pedersen, P. Pilleri, C. Pilorget, P. C. Pinet, J. W. Rice, C. Royer, V. Sautter, M. Schulte, M. A. Sephton, S. K. Sharma, S. F. Sholes, N. Spanovich, M. St. Clair, C. D. Tate, K. Uckert, S. J. VanBommel, A. G. Yanchilina and M.-P. Zorzano, 25 August 2022, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abo2196
“Ground penetrating radar observations of subsurface structures in the floor of Jezero crater, Mars” by Svein-Erik Hamran, David A. Paige, Abigail Allwood, Hans E. F. Amundsen, Tor Berger, Sverre Brovoll, Lynn Carter, Titus M. Casademont, Leif Damsgård, Henning Dypvik, Sigurd Eide, Alberto G. Fairén, Rebecca Ghent, Jack Kohler, Michael T. Mellon, Daniel C. Nunes, Dirk Plettemeier, Patrick Russell, Matt Siegler and Mats Jørgen Øyan, 25 August 2022, Science Advances. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp8564
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
This image was taken by Perseverance on Sol 466, or June 12, 2022 by Earth’s calendar. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
My colleague noticed something strange in the latest batch of photos from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover: A roundish rock appears to be carefully balanced atop a jagged outcrop. How did that get there?
The photo was taken in Mars’ Jezero Crater by Perseverance’s right Mastcam-Z on Sol 466, which corresponds to June 12 here on Earth.
I emailed NASA to ask what the rock could be and whether there’s anything truly strange here. James Rice, a geologist on the Mastcam-Z team from the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, wrote back to me:
Balancing rocks (sometimes called Precariously Balanced Rocks PBRs) of various sizes, ranging from small rock sizes (inches) to formations hundreds of feet high, are naturally occurring and not really that unusual. Often a balancing rock is in fact connected to the larger underlying rock by a stem or pedestal. The Martian balancing rock shown is found at the Rockytop outcrop near the base of the delta and was most likely formed after extensive aeolian (wind) and/or chemical erosion carved it out from the local bedrock.
These types of features are more than just geologic curiosities; in fact they have been called “reverse seismometers” because the existence of PBRs makes it possible to measure earthquakes/marsquakes that didn’t happen. If these rocks are still balanced, then the ground hasn’t moved enough to knock them over. So we can use these features to learn about a region’s seismic history.
Ah yes, a classic PBR. Glad that’s cleared up!
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Around the same time as this image, the Perseverance rover got a photo of a shiny piece of material tucked into some rocks, and NASA believes it could be a piece of the rover’s thermal blanket from its landing in 2021. NASA tweeted that the rover landed 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) away from where the blanket remnant was found, but notes that it could’ve been moved by the wind or landed there by itself.
The Perseverance rover spotted what may be a piece of the thermal blanket used during the probe’s landing on Mars in 2021.Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
We get weird images from Mars all the time, and we’ve seen rocks that look like squirrels, spoons, doorways, and more. Our eyes play tricks on us, and that’s especially true when viewing an alien landscape full of both familiar and unfamiliar sights. We’re seeing two-dimensional representations of a three-dimensional world, so these optical illusions are bound to happen.
“We think these gust-liftings are infrequent but could be responsible for a large fraction of the background dust that hovers all the time in the Martian atmosphere,” Newman said.
Why Is Jezero Different?
While wind and dust are prevalent all over Mars, what the researchers are finding seems to set Jezero apart. This greater activity may be linked to the crater being near what Newman describes as a “dust storm track” that runs north to south across the planet, often lifting dust during the dust storm season.
Newman added that the greater activity in Jezero could be due to factors such as the roughness of its surface, which can make it easier for the wind to lift dust. That could be one explanation why NASA’s InSight lander – in Elysium Planitia, about 2,145 miles (3,452 kilometers) away from Jezero Crater – is still waiting for a whirlwind to clear its dust-laden solar panels, while Perseverance has already measured nearby surface dust removal by several passing whirlwinds.
“Perseverance is nuclear-powered, but if we had solar panels instead, we probably wouldn’t have to worry about dust buildup,” Newman said. “There’s generally just more dust lifting in Jezero Crater, though average wind speeds are lower there and peak wind speeds and whirlwind activity are comparable to Elysium Planitia.”
In fact, Jezero’s dust lifting has been more intense than the team would have wanted: Sand carried in whirlwinds damaged MEDA’s two wind sensors. The team suspects the sand grains harmed the thin wiring on the wind sensors, which stick out from Perseverance’s mast. These sensors are particularly vulnerable because they must remain exposed to the wind in order to measure it correctly. Sand grains blown in the wind, and likely carried in whirlwinds, also damaged one of the Curiosity rover’s wind sensors (Curiosity’s other wind sensor was damaged by debris churned up during its landing in Gale Crater).
With Curiosity’s damage in mind, the Perseverance team provided an additional protective coating to MEDA’s wires. Yet Jezero’s weather still got the better of them. De la Torre Juarez said the team is testing software changes that should allow the wind sensors to keep working.
“We collected a lot of great science data,” de la Torre Juarez said. “The wind sensors are seriously impacted, ironically, because we got what we wanted to measure.”
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
The stone sitting inside the interior of one of Percy’s six aluminum wheels, in an image captured on February 25, 2022. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Perseverance rover has involuntarily adopted a traveling companion, in the form of a stone that’s lodged in one of its six aluminum wheels.
An image captured by Perseverance’s Onboard Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera, or Hazcam for short, shows the interloper sitting on the interior of a wheel. The rover must’ve kicked up the rock while exploring Jezero Crater, where it’s been operating since it landed on Mars in February 2021.
The picture was taken on February 25, 2022, but a similar image taken five days later showed the rock still firmly in place. The stone, it would appear, is now a stubborn fixture of the $2.2 billion rover. It’s not known when the rock managed to hop aboard, but sleuthing by C|Net reporter Amanda Kooser suggests it’s been there since at least February 6, 2021.
A Hazcam image taken on March 2, 2022 shows the rock still firmly in place. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rock appears to be a cosmetic annoyance and not anything that’s currently hindering the rover’s progress. At least we hope. I reached out to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to confirm that the rock isn’t currently posing a problem, and will update this article should I hear back.
That Perseverance’s 20.7-inch-wide (52.2-centimeter) wheels are able to withstand this unexpected intrusion is not a huge surprise. The rover was fitted with upgraded wheels to prevent the wear-and-tear seen on NASA’s Curiosity rover. Each aluminum wheel is fitted with 48 cleats that improve traction and curved titanium spokes that provide bouncy support. The upgraded wheels are also narrower, with a thicker and more robust thread, as Morten Bo Madsen, a Mars 2020 project scientist and astrophysicist at the Niels Bohr Institute, told Gizmodo in 2020.
Perseverance is currently backtracking toward the Octavia E. Butler landing site, and it’s driving longer distances than at any other time during the mission. Mission planners are hoping to collect more surface samples before the rover reaches Jezero’s delta, where it will use its Mastcam-Z and SuperCam instruments to study its structure and mineralogy.
This isn’t Percy’s first pebble problem: In January, debris got into the rover’s machinery following a rock sample extraction. Thankfully, the rover managed to dislodge those pebbles, which were clogging its sample cache system.
NASA’s Perseverance team announced that the Mars rover managed to dislodge the pebbles clogging its sample cache system, a problem that has vexed the robot since last month.
The sampling caching system is arguably the most vital component of the Perseverance mission, as analyzing Martian rocks in detail will contribute to all of NASA’s Mars goals: figuring out if life ever existed on the planet, understanding its ancient climate and geology, and preparing for human exploration there. The samples collected by Perseverance will be brought to Earth in the early 2030s, if all goes according to plan.
But this is Mars, so rarely does a plan not encounter a snag or two. In Perseverance’s case, the most recent issue occurred when the rover was caching a sample it cored from a rock called Issole. Some rock fell out of the sample tube as it was being put into the bit carousel, a lazy-Susan-like contraption meant to store the rock samples on the rover. (The rover has 43 sample tubes aboard, seven of which have been filled so far).
As it turned out (and as some of our readers suggested), the rocks finally came loose after some shaking. First, the rover rotated the bit carousel, a move that cleared the two rocks that stopped the rover from processing the Issole sample. To keep track of the rover’s attempt, mission controllers studied the differences between images taken before and after the corrective actions. The ejected pebbles were picked up by the rover’s Mastcam-Z camera.
Then, the team turned to removing the remaining rock inside the sample tube, so that they could save that tube for another coring attempt. “We essentially shook the heck out of it for 208 seconds—by means of the percussive function on the drill,” reported Rick Welch, a deputy project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a recent blog post. The maneuver was a success, and the tube will now be reused.
But two smaller pebbles were still stuck. The NASA team determined they wouldn’t jam the rover, though, and figured they may shake loose through some driving. Indeed, the Perseverance team reported on January 25 that the rover backed up onto some nearby rocks, tilting the robot, and then twisted one wheel. In that process, the remaining rocks fell out of the $2.7 billion vehicle.
Now that Perseverance has passed the stones, it can return to the 2-year project at hand: collecting more rocks, the right way.
More: NASA Has a Plan to Dislodge the Pebbles Stuck in Perseverance Rover
The Perseverance rover has run into a snag, after a Martian rock sample extracted on December 29 didn’t transfer correctly into the rover’s long-term storage. NASA is currently working on how to remove debris from the rover’s machinery before proceeding with more sampling.
Louise Jandura, chief engineer for sampling and caching at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote in a NASA blog post that the issue occurred when the rock sample was being moved from the end of the robotic arm that drilled it onto the carousel that holds the sample tubes. Sensors on Perseverance track resistance when the coring bit holding the sample first comes in contact with the carousel, and this time, there was more drag than usual.
The Perseverance team pinged the rover for more data and imagery and told the rover to separate the drill bit and sample from the carousel. That separation occurred on January 6, and NASA got data on January 7.
Images from the rover showed several bits of regolith and pebbles; the team suspects that the debris are pieces of the cored rock that fell out during the drop-off process, keeping the drill bit from nestling neatly in the carousel.
Jandura noted that Perseverance is capable of doing the sample storage even with debris in the way, but as the $2.7-billion-dollar rover is still relatively new on the Red Planet and has plenty more science in store, the team hopes to clear the pebbles before continuing on with the mission.
The sample came from a rock outcrop named Issole, where the team hopes to collect a pair of samples from the crater floor in a region called Séítah, recognizable for its large, difficult-to-navigate sand dunes. Séítah’s rocks are of particular scientific interest, as noted in a NASA blog from November: “[B]y studying the directions that the layers tilted, we determined that the rocks of Séítah are likely the most ancient rocks exposed in all of Jezero crater. Séítah therefore represents the beginning of the accessible geologic record and offers a once-in-a-mission opportunity to explore the full breadth of landscape evolution.”
Eventually, the rover will make it to the western edge of the Jezero Crater, which is believed to be a dried-up river delta. Based on fossils of microbial life on Earth, the Perseverance team thinks the crater is one of the best locations to search for signs of ancient Martian life.
Perseverance brought 43 sample tubes to Mars, of which seven have been filled. The first and second tubes didn’t contain any rock, but the rest were successfully stored. By the end of the decade, NASA intends to bring those rock samples to Earth, where they could be analyzed for years to come.
Of course, the rover needs to get over the recent sampling hurdle first. But it was named Perseverance for a reason.
More: Perseverance Rover Images Reveal Ancient History of a Water-Soaked Martian Crater
It hasn’t even been on Mars a full year, and NASA’s Perseverance rover is making excellent surprise discoveries.
Amid a number of findings announced this week at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, scientists have revealed that the Jezero Crater formed from molten volcanic magma – and that organic molecules have been discovered in rocks and dust on the crater floor.
This is by no means evidence for life on Mars. Organic compounds are simply those that contain carbon-hydrogen bonds, and these can form by any number of non-biological processes. Indeed, organic compounds have been discovered on Mars before, both by the Curiosity rover and the Mars Express orbiter.
But the finding does suggest that Mars rocks can preserve these compounds well, which in turn suggests that biological organic material could also be preserved. And that’s pretty exciting.
“Curiosity also discovered organics at its landing site within Gale Crater,” says planetary scientist Luther Beegle of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The detection was made using a new instrument on Perseverance called the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals, or SHERLOC for short.
“What SHERLOC adds to the story is its capability to map the spatial distribution of organics inside rocks and relate those organics to minerals found there,” explains Beegle. “This helps us understand the environment in which the organics formed. More analysis needs to be done to determine the method of production for the identified organics.”
Perseverance landed on the red planet in February, in a region called the Jezero Crater. This place is thought to have once been flooded with water, and is rich in clay minerals – characteristics vitally important to Perseverance’s mission. That’s because, in a first for a Mars expedition, the rover has been tasked with looking for signs of ancient life; in our terrestrial experience, that’s likely to occur near water.
In another first, the rover is equipped with 43 canisters in which it will deposit geological samples from Mars, to be retrieved and returned to Earth in a future mission called Mars Sample Return. Of course, those samples will be limited, so Perseverance is also equipped with a suite of scientific instruments to perform in situ analyses.
The SHERLOC instrument, for instance, was able to detect a combination of organic minerals in the Jezero Crater. These were not just in rocks that the rover abraded for the purpose of studying their internal contents, but in dust that coated the crater floor.
Another of Perseverance’s instruments, the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL), also allowed scientists here on Earth to learn the provenance of the bedrock in the Jezero Crater. After taking a core sample in a region nicknamed “Brac”, PIXL’s data clearly showed the presence of olivine crystals embedded in pyroxene crystals.
Here on Earth, such a mineral configuration is igneous in origin, suggesting that the floor of the Jezero crater formed from hot magma.
“A good geology student will tell you that such a texture indicates the rock formed when crystals grew and settled in a slowly cooling magma – for example a thick lava flow, lava lake, or magma chamber,” says geochemist Ken Farley from the California Institute of Technology.
“The rock was then altered by water several times, making it a treasure trove that will allow future scientists to date events in Jezero, better understand the period in which water was more common on its surface, and reveal the early history of the planet. Mars Sample Return is going to have great stuff to choose from!”
We might have a while to wait for that; no launch date has currently been set for Mars Sample Return, and it’s at least a year-long round trip to Mars, assuming everything goes smoothly, and not counting the time spent on Mars picking up Perseverance’s sample tubes.
Even with limited instrumentation, however, the data Perseverance is sending home is invaluable to Mars scientists, both now and for planning future missions. And scientists are itching to get their hands on actual Mars rock, relatively freshly harvested, to complement studies of Martian meteorites that may have been altered on their journey to Earth.
“When these samples are returned to Earth, they will be a source of scientific inquiry and discovery for many years,” says Beegle.
It’s been nearly nine months since the Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater, a dried-up lake bed on Mars. Since then, its science mission has reached full swing, with the rover now scouring the Red Planet’s surface for interesting rocks to sample. Just this week, it exposed a circular patch of rock that had never before seen the hazy light of Martian day.
Perseverance is looking for rock formations that could reveal Mars’s geologic history and, potentially, evidence that life once existed there. The far-out idea is that, if anything once lived on Mars, it would’ve been when liquid water flowed on the surface. Recently, scientists have learned that at least some of the rocks in Jezero are igneous, meaning they came from the planet’s interior, and early findings indicated the lake in Jezero experienced violent flash floods in its ancient past.
Ultimately, the rover is headed for Jezero’s western edge, where a river delta once fed into the lake. That’s where scientists think any microfossils are most likely to be found, based on where such microbes tend to set up shop on Earth.
If recent social media postings are anything to go by, the rover’s really loving its job. Last month it swung by a couple of large rock outcrops, and last week it appreciated some pretty layered rocks. Yesterday, the rover’s team announced they’re getting closer to choosing the next target for sampling.
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The rover samples rock by picking a location and abrading a circular patch of it, thereby revealing a part that hasn’t been exposed to the elements. Then, it cores that rock and stores the sample within its car-sized frame. Its lazy Susan-like repository for Martian rock will, hopefully, be brought to Earth in the future, probably sometime around 2030.
Once the samples are on Earth, scientists will be able to study them in much more detail than anything they’re able to glean from millions of miles away. The first rock sample had a false start, but NASA scientists were able to collect a sample on their second attempt.
Currently, the rover is to the southeast of its landing site, on the outskirts of the South Séítah region of Mars, which is a pretty tricky series of sand dunes and ridges that can be hard for a rover to navigate. (That’s part of the reason it’s been nice for NASA to use the Ingenuity helicopter as a scout; it can view rocks from above that Perseverance can’t get near.)
The Perseverance mission is planned to last a Martian year, or 687 Earth days. If previous rover lifetimes are anything to go off of, though, we may be blessed with many years thereafter. Hopefully it’s enough time for the rover to find something truly mind-blowing in that dusty crater.
More: Perseverance’s Most Intriguing Images Captured From Mars So Far
