Perseverance’s hunt for past life begins on Mars

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SuperCam of NASA’s Perseverance has collected first samples of past life on planet Mars.

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NASA’s Perseverance mission scientist informed on 10th March that a bunch of instruments known as SuperCam had collected its first sample of any past life on the Red planet.

Mission Mars 2020 was launched on 30th July, 2020. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life, which will advance NASA's quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. The rover has a drill to collect core samples of Martian rock and soil, and then store them in sealed tubes for pickup by a future mission that would ferry them back to Earth for detailed analysis. Perseverance will also test technologies to help pave the way for future human exploration of Mars.

NASA's Perseverance rover stayed for seven months in the space and gently set down on Martian soil on 18th February, 2021. It sent black-and-white images revealing the rocky fields of Jezero Crater, just north of the Mars equator.

On the mast of the rover, a shoebox-sized gizmo packed with spectrometers, a laser, and an audio recording device is mounted to analyse the chemistry, mineralogy and molecular composition of Mars’ red surface.

SuperCam's laser can flash objects smaller than a pencil point from as far away as seven metres and enables the observation of spots beyond the reach of the rover's robotic arm.

It is believed by the Scientists that around 3.5 billion years ago the crater in which Perseverance landed was abode to a river that flowed into a deep lake, placing sediment in a fan-shaped delta.

The task of the rover is to collect more than two dozen rock and soil samples in sealed tubes and sent back to Earth sometime in the 2030s for analysis.

Perseverance Rover

Perseverance is equipped with a two-meter (seven-foot) robotic arm, 19 cameras, two microphones as well as other cutting-edge instruments.

A small helicopter drone attached to the base of the rover will attempt the first powered flight on another planet in a few weeks' time.

Also one instrument on rover is designed to make oxygen from Mars' primarily carbon dioxide atmosphere, something that would greatly facilitate human habitation.

Perseverance is the fifth rover from NASA to land on Mars. The feat was first accomplished in 1997.

Although the core mission lasts just over two years, but the rover could remain operational well beyond that.