NASA’s Perseverance Rover Ventures Different Location on Its Second Year--Going to Martian River

NASA's Perseverance Rover is on its second year on Mars and about to embark on an ancient river.

Perseverance Rover launched on Mars in July 2020. NASA's rover had the objective of seeking ancient life and collecting samples of rocks and soil from the planet to bring back home on Earth.

Known as 'Percy' for short, the Perseverance rover first touched down on the surface of Mars one year ago and has since trundled more than two miles across the planet's surface.

The mission has taken thousands of photographs and analyzed the chemical composition of rocks and tested innovative technology such as a machine that splits carbon dioxide into oxygen that can be breathed.

The New Location of Perseverance Rover

The Perseverance rover's second year on Mars is expected to be even more eventful than its first year on the planet.

On February 18, 2021, the car-sized Perseverance rover touched down inside the Red Planet's Jezero Crater, where it will begin searching for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting hundreds of samples for eventual return to Earth.

According to mission team members, the 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) Jezero region on Mars is an ideal location for such work since it once hosted a large lake and a river delta in the distant past.

As reported by Space.com, river deltas on Earth are excellent at preserving carbon-containing organic compounds, the building blocks of life as we know it as well as the residues of life itself, which is why Perseverance's handlers are eager to examine Jezero's delta for signs of life. And they should get down to business in earnest in the coming weeks and months.

"For the mission's second year, we are incredibly excited to finally get to the delta," said Briony Horgan, an associate professor of planetary science at Purdue University, who is a member of the Perseverance science team.

According to Horgan, "the delta in Jezero Crater was one of the factors in deciding on the landing site, and we hope to get to it later this spring."

The team plans to spend the entire next year traveling through the ancient lake deposits and ancient river deposits that make up the delta. "Once we're there, we'll be able to look at the bottom of the ancient lake that once filled Jezero to search for signs of ancient microbial life, and we plan to spend the whole next year traveling through the ancient lake deposits and ancient river deposits that are within the delta."

The Ancient River

The Perseverance rover has already begun exploring the isolated remains of the hill named Kodiak. Kodiak is part of Jezero's ancient delta.

This was carried out early in the mission from a distance using Perseverance's Mastcam-Z imaging suite and a camera on its rock-zapping SuperCam instrument,

This particular exploration was proven fruitful since it confirmed the existence of a long-extinct lake and river delta. However, examining up close will be far more productive and helpful, although they should be made available soon.

What's More for NASA's Perseverance?

According to National Geographic, Mars most likely had a thicker atmosphere billions of years ago, which would have made it much warmer, wetter, and potentially more hospitable to life than the rusty planet that we see today.

In part, this lush past has been pieced together by scientists using data from rovers that investigate rocks on the ground and orbiting spacecraft that look down from above.

As reported, the team is getting closer than ever to laying gloved hands on a bit of pristine Martian rock. JPL systems engineer Ian Clark stated that "this might be the foundational science mission for quite some time."