The Mars rover found that Jezero Crater’s floor is made up of volcanic rocks that have interacted with water. NASA scientists got a big surprise when the Perseverance Mars rover began analyzing rocks on the floor of Jezero Crater in the spring of 2021: They had expected to find sedimentary rock bec
SuperCam is equipped with a rock-vaporizing laser that can zap a target as small as a pencil tip from up to 20 feet away. It analyzes the resulting vapor using a visible-light spectrometer to determine a rock’s chemical composition. During Perseverance’s first 10 months on Mars SuperCam zapped 1,450 points, helping scientists arrive at their conclusion about igneous rocks on the crater floor.
In addition, SuperCam used near-infrared light – it’s the first instrument on Mars with that capability – to find that water-altered minerals in the crater floor rocks. However, the alterations weren’t pervasive throughout the crater floor, according to the combination of laser and infrared observations.
RIMFAX marks another first. Although Mars orbiters carry ground-penetrating radars, no spacecraft on the surface of Mars have before Perseverance. Being on the surface, RIMFAX can provide unparalleled detail, and surveyed the crater floor as deep as 50 feet .
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