Life on Mars possible? NASA Perseverance Rover finds intriguing evidence

NASA has made a new development while collecting organic material samples from Mars to pave the way for future special missions.

By: HT TECH
| Updated on: Sep 18 2022, 14:54 IST
Awesome NASA photo of Mars- Just check it out
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1/5 This amazing image of Mars with blue ripples reveals the secret of the red planet’s winds, says NASA. (NASA)
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2/5 NASA wrote in the image’s post ““There are tiny ripples on the tops of the dunes, only several feet from crest-to-crest. These merge into larger mega-ripples about 30 feet apart that radiate outward from the dunes. The larger, brighter formations that are roughly parallel are called "Transverse Aeolian Ridges" (TAR). These TAR are covered with very coarse sand”. (NASA)
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3/5 “All of these different features can indicate which way the wind was blowing when they formed. Being able to study such a variety so close together allows us to see their relationships and compare and contrast features to examine what they are made of and how they formed,” NASA further added. (NASA)
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4/5 According to NASA, the blue colour was not added for effect but had an important reason behind it. On the right side the ripples appear in blue-green color while on the left side, it appears in bright blue because the wind is blowing faster on the left side of the image and the TAR appears in bright color. On the right side, the slower moving wind gives it an ocean green color. (NASA)
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5/5 Just a month ago, NASA’s Mars Rover reported dust whirlwinds on Mars, known as Dust Devils. These whirlwinds got as big as 4 square kilometers and occurred multiple times a day. Therefore, to study the wind patterns, NASA added the blue colour to study the changing wind patterns on the red planet. (NASA)
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NASA’s Perseverance Rover has collected several samples of organic matter from Jezero Crater. (Pixabay)

Is life on Mars even possible? It is one of the most barren and bleak planets. Humans, without protection, would be dead in seconds. But the prospect of life on Mars has always been an intriguing concept. However, it has remained a mystery and keeps the scientists busy in trying to find plausible evidence and answers to prove that life did once exist on it. That's why NASA's Perseverance rover is on the hunt for signs of ancient life on the red planet. So far, the Perseverance rover has collected several samples of organic matter from Jezero Crater. Scientists hypothesise that a river once flowed into a lake in the Jezero Crater of Mars and deposited boulders and sediments in a fan pattern billions of years ago. The best locations on Mars to look for potential evidence of prehistoric microbial life are believed to be deltas.

In a shared video by NASA's Mars Exploration program, Rachel Kronyak, a member of the Perseverance science operations team, shared glimpses of the Martian surface in a most-detailed manner so far that consists of 2.5 billion pixels generated from 1,118 individual Mastcam-Z images.

Currently, the Perseverance rover is closely monitoring the sedimentary rocks of the river delta. These rocks, like those on Earth, were created when the regions were once covered in water and carried innumerable particles of various sizes, which eventually settled down. The Jezero crater floor was examined during the Rover's first science campaign, and there it found igneous rock, which is formed deep below from magma or as a result of volcanic activity on the surface.

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More about NASA's Perseverance mission on Mars

Launched on July 30, 2020, the key objective of NASA's Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, which means the search for signs of ancient microbial life on the red planet. The rover of the mission will distinguish the planet's geology and past climate, which in future will pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. Also, it will be the first mission to collect and carry the Martian rock and regolith, which include the broken rock and dust back to Earth.

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First Published Date: 18 Sep, 14:54 IST
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