The Mars Sample Return mission is an ambitious endeavor that could see Martian geological specimens returned to Earth to search for signs of life on the Red Planet.
in the 2030's, if all goes to plan. Getting that precious freight back to Earth and evaluated in labs is an international and elaborate affair guided by collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency.
But the prospective scientific payoff is palpable. Investigators are eager to scope out the bits, pieces, and atmosphere of the Red Planet that will be hurled to Earth. At the"Three Forks" sample depot at Jezero Crater, 10 sample tubes are seen in this photomontage of images taken by the NASA Perseverance Mars rover's WATSON camera on the end of the robot's mechanical arm.
The delta front is the scene of rocks and sediment at the western edge of the crater, a geological setting formed at the convergence of a Martian river and a crater lake billions of years ago. "So it's great to see that Jezero Crater is providing both really interesting igneous rocks and sedimentary rocks clearly laid down in a watery environment," says Steve Ruff, a planetary geologist and associate research professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.
"But it's going to be challenging to connect the organics to life given that they've likely been highly degraded after billions of years in the Martian environment," says Ruff."Some kind of textural evidence likely will be needed to provide the extraordinary evidence needed to make the extraordinary claim of life on Mars, to paraphrase Carl Sagan," he concludes.
The robotic Mars Sample Return project, if successful, is likely to fuel follow-on puzzlement. No doubt there will be a still-to-do checklist of items to better grasp what secrets Mars holds tight.
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