The Perseverance rover departed Earth in July 2020 to seek chemical evidence of ancient microbes on Mars and collect samples of rocks and regolith for the eventual return home by a potential mission in the 2030s. After reviewing images taken from orbit that hinted at signs of ancient water-formed features, NASA chose Jezero Crater as the landing site for the mission, known as Mars 2020. The 45-kilometer-wide crater lies on a plain called Isidis Planitia, 18° north of Mars’s equator, that is located inside a giant impact basin. In the months since landing at Jezero, the rover has been investigating rocks, measuring the composition and properties of the atmosphere, and snapping photos.
State-of-the-art instruments aboard the rover are now documenting evidence of a rich history of watery processes and an atmospheric environment that has striking similarities to Earth’s. Here are some of the findings presented at last month’s annual meetings of the Geological Society of America and the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.
To read more, click here.