If anyone knows anything about exploring the landscape of Mars, it’s NASA.
Their four previous rovers, Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity,
have travelled across the planet’s surface for years,
observing everything Mars has to offer, from its rocks to its horizons.
Except now, scientists want more than to just look at the red planet. They want a piece of it.
So, NASA is sending their most advanced rover, Perseverance, on their upcoming mission.
The Mars 2020 mission is NASA's next Flagship Rover mission.
We are going to Mars to be part of the first step of Mars Sample Return,
and we are also seeking signs of ancient life in the ancient rocks.
Mars is not only a planet close to Earth,
but it’s possibly the most similar to ours — which is why we keep going back.
We're still so intrigued by Mars because at the same time that life was arising here on our own planet,
it was potentially arising on a planet like Mars.
To answer that fundamental question, NASA scientists have pinpointed what they consider a prime location
to send their rover to: a region known as Jezero crater.
Jezero crater is a really unique and scientifically compelling landing site
for the Perseverance mission because it has evidence for an ancient lake.
We know that based on our rock record here on Earth.
Lake deposits are really calm environments where you basically just have the trickle down of sediment
into the bottom of the lake.
And if you have life there, it gets buried and preserved.
So, that's exactly the type of thing that we're looking for with Perseverance.
Perseverance will have an initial mission duration of 1 Martian year,
or roughly two Earth years, to collect and sample as many sediments as it possibly can.
That way, future missions can retrieve those samples, which NASA hopes to achieve by the 2030’s.
And Perseverance is definitely built for the challenge.
This rover is the most sophisticated vehicle from NASA to land on the red planet,
with hundreds of hours of labor advancing almost every aspect of the rover.
Essentially, scientists want the vehicle to be an extension of themselves.
What would a researcher on Mars want to see, feel, and even hear?
Which is why this time, Perseverance will be equipped with microphones.
For example, when we drill rocks and we can see how hard or soft they are,
but we've never really had sound or the ability to hear on Mars.
There’s even an instrument on board known as the SuperCam,
which will shoot lasers at rocks and vaporize them to produce plasma,
which its spectrometer can then analyze.
BUT also listen in to...
So, we expect to hear the kind “zip” sound that would form.
We have scientists who are working to understand what that sound can tell us about the properties of the rocks.
You also might learn something about the atmosphere that the sound has to travel through
and that the laser has to travel through.
And “hearing” is just ONE of many incredible features of this rover.
Perseverance is equipped with a suite of instruments and tools
starting with an aerospace industry standard processor and memory as its “brains,"
twenty-three cameras to help it “see,”
newly designed titanium wheels to help it travel,
a nuclear power generator as its energy,
and something that no other rover has had before: the star of the show,
a brand new sampling processing system.
So, since we are a part of sample return, our objective is to collect and cache samples.
We obtain cores of rock and sand from the Martian surface and we store them in super clean tubes.
Because we want to make sure that when we bring those samples back,
if we find evidence for life, it's not life that we brought with us.
But this sampling cache won’t be alone in deciphering what’s life and what’s not.
Another part of Perseverance is its new suite of instruments that reside on its special “arm."
Those instruments are able to both observe very fine details in the rocks that we see,
but also map composition and the distribution of organic molecules in the rocks that we see.
By putting together those fine textures, plus the composition, plus the organics,
that's really how you build a case for a biosignature, which is any kind of pattern
or texture or substance that requires life to form.
That's really what we're searching for.
Throughout its entire search, Perseverance will be looking for those biosignatures —
because they could upend everything we know.
If we found what we thought was real potential evidence for life, it wouldn't just fill a knowledge gap for Mars —
it would fill a knowledge gap for us.
That's incredibly exciting because there are likely many other places in the universe that could host life.
When the rover lands in February of 2021, the potential for what Perseverance could discover is huge.
Which is why its upcoming launch is so exciting.
Accompanying the rover will be an aircraft known as Ingenuity,
which will conduct a controlled experimental flight test on Mars,
the first of its kind to ever be put on another planet.
If Ingenuity succeeds, a future Mars exploration could include robotic flying vehicles that could help landers,
rovers, or even humans.
This is all just the first step towards a future where we could explore space like we never have before —
and I for one, can’t wait.
There are just so many questions to explore.
Are we the only ones? Are we alone?
I think if we found a potential biosignature,
it really just throws the door wide open to the possibility for life in the universe.
To learn more about NASA’s mission to Mars and how exactly they want to bring back samples,
check out this episode from our Focal Point series.
Is there another mission you’d like to see us cover?
Let us know in the comments below.
Make sure to subscribe to Seeker, and as always, thanks so much for watching.
We’ll see you next time.
