Thanks to Mars rover missions like NASA`s Perseverance and Curiosity, we are gaining knowledge of greater approximately the Red Planet than ever before. One of the most important questions that researchers have approximately Mars, which the Perseverance rover is particularly meant to investigate, is whether or not there ought to ever had been existence at the planet. Researchers are quite sure that there is not anything dwelling on Mars now, however there might have been microbial existence there billions of years in the past while there has been nonetheless liquid water gift at the planet's surface.
To recognize the records of Mars, a rover like Perseverance is an critical tool. It can carry out investigations the use of units like spectrometers to recognize the composition of rock samples, and it is able to use its cameras to photo the regions the ones samples had been taken from and notice whether or not there are beneficial geographic functions like layers which could provide a clue to the location's past. By searching at layers of rock, scientists can see special intervals in Mars' records and study matters just like the weather or temperature in the course of special time intervals.
But if we need to genuinely recognize greater approximately the records of Mars, and specifically whether or not there has been ever existence there, we want to get samples off the planet and lower back to labs on Earth in which they may be tested in greater depth. That's the goal of NASA's Mars Sample Return project, which plans to move samples from Mars to Earth for similarly observe withinside the 2030s. The plan for the Mars Sample Return project includes a small rover known as a Fetch Rover, one or greater pattern recuperation helicopters, and the primary rocket to take off from every other planet.
Collecting the pattern tubes from Mars
All of that is in resource of bringing those samples of Mars rock and dirt lower back to Earth — however first, those samples need to be drilled and gathered. That's a part of the activity of the Perseverance rover, that's presently accumulating samples because it explores a place of Mars known as the Jezero crater. Once the group running at the rover has decided on an exciting goal they need to pattern, they use the rover's drill to bore into the rock and produce up rock matter. Then the rover collects this pattern and seals it in a unique air-tight tube to defend it, as distinct via way of means of NASA. These samples can then be left at the Martian surface, equipped to be gathered and ultimately introduced lower back to Earth.
The samples can not simply be left mendacity round everywhere though. The NASA group wishes to recognize precisely in which every pattern is which will be capable of retrieve it withinside the destiny, and the samples additionally want to be left in a flat, on hand location in order that destiny helicopters may be capable of get admission to them safely. So Perseverance has been running to prepare a "pattern depot" in which 10 of the samples it has gathered up to now may be stored. Each pattern is close to sufficient to the others to be without problems on hand, however now no longer so near that the places ought to get combined up. As of December 2022, the rover has cautiously located the ten tubes specially places equipped for his or her eventual collection. With the depot now equipped, we are one step toward having samples from every other planet introduced lower back to Earth for observe.
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