After six months of effort, an instrument that helps the Mars rover look for potential signs of ancient microbial life has come back online. The SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has analyzed a rock target with its spectrometer and camera for the first...
Perseverance arrived at the base of this outcrop on sol 1175, and geologists on the science team were mesmerized by the strange textures of the light toned rocks found there. These rocks are filled with sharp ridges that resemble the mineral veins found at the base of the fan, but there appears to be more of them here. Additionally, some rocks are densely packed with...
Originally thought of as little more than a route clear of rover-slowing boulders, Neretva Vallis has provided a bounty of geologic options for the science team. After detouring through a dune field to avoid wheel-rattling boulders, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover reached its latest area of scientific interest on June 9. The route change not only shortened the...