Carving into carbonates on Mars

This previous week on Mars, Perseverance made a pit cease close to Overlook Mountain to abrade a rock known as Outdated Devoted Geyser. This goal is located throughout the Western aspect of the Margin Unit, an space across the higher fringe of Jezero Crater that’s astrobiologically attention-grabbing as a result of its considerable carbonate.

Carbonate-bearing rocks have been a serious scientific focus all through this marketing campaign, which started with Perseverance getting into the Japanese aspect of the Margin Unit on Sol 915 of the mission (1 sol = 1 day on Mars) in September of 2023, about 240 sols in the past, then roving steadily Westward.

To date, Perseverance has collected 3 cores from this Unit, together with Pelican Level on Sol 923, Lefroy Bay on Sol 942, and Comet Geyser on Sol 1088.

Proximity and distant science observations related to every of those targets have all confirmed the presence of carbonate, however the grains and mineral assemblages in every rock are distinctive, which can point out that carbonates within the Japanese and Western elements of the Margin have skilled totally different formation mechanisms and/or alteration histories.

Specifically, the crew is keen on understanding whether or not the carbonate-bearing rocks within the West fashioned by sedimentary, igneous, or volcaniclastic processes.

To research the origin of Western Margin Unit carbonates, the crew determined to cease off at Outdated Devoted Geyser to conduct an opportunistic abrasion on Sol 1151, then measure the rock with the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL), a proximity science instrument carried on the rover’s arm.

PIXL maps elemental distributions throughout nice scales (every PIXL map is a couple of sq. millimeters), and the Broad Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering (WATSON) digicam takes complementary photos of rocks from the same close-up scale to file rock textures, grain boundaries, and colour distributions.

PIXL and WATSON will assess variations or similarities in composition within the Outdated Devoted Geyser abrasion, as in comparison with different targets throughout the Margin Unit, in hopes of higher understanding how carbonates from East to West fashioned and remodeled by time.

Along with serving to the crew unravel the historical past of Jezero Crater’s carbonates that file modifications alongside the Margin, the observations at Outdated Devoted Geyser would supply extra context for the three collected Margin Unit core samples if they’re introduced again to Earth by Mars Pattern Return (MSR) sooner or later.