Only a handful of hours ago, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover landed safely on the surface of Mars! It was exciting to see the sheer look of relief and delight of the watching NASA JPL scientists and engineers.
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Now that the Mars rover nicknamed ‘Percy’ is on the ground the focus will soon turn to questions such as … what can researchers learn about the ancient Jezero Crater? Did conditions on Mars at some stage between 3 billion years and 4 billion years ago allow for microbial life on the red planet? Crucial to finding this out will be an instrument called PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) in order to closely examine the fine-scale mineralogy of the rocks encountered by the rover. This instrument will allow researchers to look for potential chemical biosignatures.
Now, lets take a look at Jezero Crater….
Keen to know more? Here are some excellent resources:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
https://www.qut.edu.au/news?id=166153
https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere
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