Rover findings offer glimpse of Red Planet’s ancient landscape

CU Boulder geologist Lisa Mayhew is among the many scientists working to recreate the historical past of an historical panorama that would not look misplaced in Utah—solely this terrain sits on Mars thousands and thousands of miles from Earth.

Mayhew is a member of the science workforce for NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, which is led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California. In August, she and her colleagues revealed a few of the first units of outcomes from the Perseverance rover’s exploration of the Crimson Planet.

The findings take a deep take a look at Jezero Crater. Greater than 3 billion years in the past, a big asteroid struck Mars, forming this geologic function that stretches nearly 30 miles throughout and comprises rolling sand dunes and craggy cliffs. Utilizing a collection of scientific devices aboard the Perseverance rover, which is concerning the dimension of an SUV, the researchers have begun to discover that panorama’s previous—exhibiting how igneous rock varieties the crater ground and the way water reshaped the rocks throughout a time when an unlimited lake doubtless crammed this area.

“We now have a whole lot of info from orbit informing what we predict the geology, minerology and chemistry of Mars could also be,” stated Mayhew, a analysis affiliate within the Division of Geological Sciences at CU Boulder. “However taking a rover there may be an extremely precious device to ensure we really perceive what’s occurring.”

The brand new outcomes are a coup for that intrepid machine. The greater than 1-ton Perseverance landed on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. It and Mayhew have been busy ever since. Over greater than 570 Martian days, or “sols,” the rover has explored almost 8 miles of the planet’s floor. The brand new research give attention to Perseverance’s first yr, which the rover spent investigating geologic formations and options alongside the crater ground, together with two named Máaz and Séítah.

Mayhew, who had beforehand solely studied rocks on Earth, sees the mission as an opportunity to stretch her abilities as a geologist and, at the least vicariously, set her toes on one other world.

“I understand generally simply how loopy it’s that I do what I do,” she stated. “I am actually appreciative that I’ve had the chance to be a part of this groundbreaking science.”

Written in rock

Jezero Crater could look dry and dusty at present, however greater than 3 billion years in the past, it might have been nearly unrecognizable. Right here, water pouring in from an inlet fed a lake that grew and shrank in dimension over the eons.

Mayhew and her colleagues try to flesh out the timeline of that wetter previous.

The workforce’s first set of findings dwelling in on two geologic formations, specifically: Máaz, Navajo for “Mars,” a function that seems to overlie the bigger Séítah, Navajo for “among the many sand.” To check this terrain, the researchers relied on a number of devices aboard Perseverance, together with SuperCam. This swiveling instrument sits on prime of the rover and makes use of laser gentle to quantify components and determine minerals current in numerous rocks.

Mayhew is a co-author on two papers led by Ken Farley of the California Institute of Expertise and Roger Wiens of Los Alamos Nationwide Laboratory detailing Perseverance’s first yr on Mars. The research had been revealed on Aug. 25 within the journals Science and Science Advances. Different analysis groups revealed extra findings from the mission on the similar time.

The group’s outcomes level to a shocking origin for these formations: A physique of scorching, molten rock could have existed on the crater ground, settling and cooling in a number of phases, probably forming each Séítah and Máaz. Alternatively, Máaz may additionally have fashioned when separate lava flows moved into the crater.

“One thought is that this was a single physique of rock fashioned from magma cooling underground,” Mayhew stated. “However one other mannequin is that Máaz could have been fashioned individually by lava actively flowing on the floor of Mars.”

The venture touches on a query that has motivated a lot of her decades-long profession: How does life carve out an existence in a few of the impossible locations on our planet?

In 2007 and 2008, Mayhew sailed on analysis cruises that collected rocks from the underside of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to be taught extra about microbial life in hydrothermal methods. In 2015 she participated in an Worldwide Ocean Drilling Program analysis cruise that drilled down into the subsurface of a hydrothermal system to entry actively reacting rocks. At these websites, rocks react with water and produce chemical substances akin to hydrogen fuel—vitamins that help vibrant communities of microbes that may, in flip, help extra advanced life akin to crustaceans and different invertebrates.

“My analysis has all the time addressed how water alters rocks and the way that course of can help life,” Mayhew stated.

Returning to Earth

To search out out if rocks in Jezero could have supported life billions of years in the past, Mayhew and her colleagues might want to take a a lot nearer take a look at these chunks of Mars—underneath the microscope in labs on Earth.

Throughout its mission, she defined, Perseverance is utilizing a drill to excavate roughly 40 Martian geologic samples, storing them in sealed tubes. NASA is working with the European Area Company (ESA) on separate missions that can journey to Mars to select up 30 of these tubes and produce them again to Earth.

Mayhew is one among 15 scientists on the mission’s Return Pattern Science workforce. She and her colleagues work with different workforce members and Perseverance’s operators to determine which rocks the rover ought to accumulate. So far, the workforce has crammed 13 of its pattern tubes, 12 with rocks and one with a pattern of environment, with plans to gather extra rock samples quickly. The workforce has additionally sealed two “witness” tubes to gather dust and particles within the environment, permitting researchers to measure contamination that is perhaps current through the sampling course of.

Mayhew stated that transitioning from an Earth-based geologist to a scientist engaged on an alien world has been robust however rewarding.

“It has felt like a giant studying curve. I haven’t got the background that lots of people on the workforce have, particularly those that have been engaged on rover missions since Alternative and Spirit went up within the early 2000s,” Mayhew stated. “I am continuously attempting to maintain my ears open and be taught from them.”

In March 2022, Perseverance left the crater ground for what will be the most enjoyable terrain of the mission—the delta. Right here, the workforce will accumulate rocks that had been deposited onto the crater floor when water as soon as flowed on Mars.

Perseverance, and Mayhew, are exhibiting no indicators of stopping: “It is a hectic schedule, and we’ve to maintain transferring.”