JAKARTA - NASA's Perseverance rover has again taken important samples in its mission, in order to determine whether life ever existed on Mars.
The samples were collected from the Jazero Crater, which includes organic matter. This means that the crater may have accommodated lakes and deltas that contained it, and had an environment that has the potential to be habitable 3.5 billion years ago.
"The rock that we have investigated in the delta has the highest concentration of organic matter that we have yet to find in the mission," said Perseverance project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Ken Farley.
Perseverance has been on a mission on the Red Planet since 18 months ago. The mission includes searching for signs of ancient microbial life.
Perseverance collects rock samples that are claimed to preserve these biological signs. Dubbed Mars Sample Return, currently the rover has bagged 12 rock samples. Later, the sample will return to Earth in the 2030s.
According to scientists, the delta location in Jazero Crater that stretches 28 miles is very interesting. Because, it has a geological feature in the form of a fan, and once there was a river meeting a lake, it can maintain the historical layer of Mars in sedimentary rocks, which form when particles blend together in the environment that used to contain this water.
The rover's robot investigates the crater floor and finds evidence of frozen rock, or volcanic. During the second mission to study the delta in the past five months, Perseverance has found a rich layer of sedimentary rock, adding more stories about Mars' ancient climate and environment.
"Delta, with its diverse sedimentary rock, is in stark contrast to frozen rock, formed from the crystalization of magma found at the bottom of the crater," Farley explained.
"This row gives us a rich understanding of geological history after the crater was formed and a variety of samples. For example, we found sandstones carrying grains and rock fragments made away from Jezero Crater."
The team from the rover's robot dubbed one of the rock samples as Wildcat Ridge. This rock is likely formed when mud and sand settle in the salt water lake as it evaporated billions of years ago.
Perseverance eroded the surface of the rock and analyzed it with an instrument known as Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals, or banyakRLOC.
"This rock Zapping laser serves as a luxurious black light to uncover chemicals, minerals, and organic matter," said scientist resulting in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA at Pasadena, Sunanda Sharma.
Furthermore, the analysis of the instrument revealed that organic minerals may be aromatic, or stable carbon and hydrogen molecules, they are connected to sulfate.
Mineral sulfates are often found pinned in sedimentary rock layers, storing information about the water environment where they are formed.
Organic molecules are very interesting on Mars because they represent the ingredients that make life, such as carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, as well as nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. Not all organic molecules require life to be formed because some can be made through a chemical process.
Previously, Curiosity explorers had also found organic material on Mars. But this time, detection occurs in areas where life may have existed. This was quoted from CNN International, Friday, September 16.
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