Missions to Mars

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NASA’s Perseverance confirms ancient lake on Mars

Data from NASA’s Perseverance rover confirms that the Jezero Crater on Mars, where the robot landed in 2021, was once filled with water.

If life ever existed on Mars, the verification of an ancient lake at the site provides the best hope of finding signs of organisms having once inhabited the Red Planet.

 

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Rock Sampled by NASA's Perseverance Embodies Why Rover Came to Mars

Perseverance Cores 'Bunsen Peak': The 21st rock core captured by NASA's Perseverance has a composition that would make it good at trapping and preserving signs of microbial life, if any was once present. The sample – shown being taken here – was cored from "Bunsen Peak" on March 11, the 1,088th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›

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The 24th sample taken by the six-wheeled scientist offers new clues about Jezero Crater and the lake it may have once held.

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Analysis by instruments aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover indicate that the latest rock core taken by the rover was awash in water for an extended period of time in the distant past, perhaps as part of an ancient Martian beach. Collected on March 11, the sample is the rover’s 24th – a tally that includes 21 sample tubes filled with rock cores, two filled with regolith (broken rock and dust), and one with Martian atmosphere.

 

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Nasa: 'New plan needed to return rocks from Mars'

The quest to return rock samples from Mars to Earth to see if they contain traces of past life is going to go through a major overhaul.

The US space agency says the current mission design could not return the materials before 2040 on the existing funds and the $11bn (£9bn) to make it happen sooner is not sustainable.....