Scientists anticipate the brand new space of curiosity on the decrease slope of Jezero Crater’s rim to supply up a few of the oldest rocks on the Crimson Planet.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is exploring a brand new area of curiosity the workforce is asking “Krokodillen” which will comprise a few of the oldest rocks on Mars. The world has been on the Perseverance science workforce’s want checklist as a result of it marks an essential boundary between the oldest rocks of Jezero Crater’s rim and people of the plains past the crater.
“The final 5 months have been a geologic whirlwind,” stated Ken Farley, deputy venture scientist for Perseverance from Caltech in Pasadena. “As profitable as our exploration of “Witch Hazel Hill” has been, our investigation of Krokodillen guarantees to be simply as compelling.”
Named by Perseverance mission scientists after a mountain ridge on the island of Prins Karls Forland, Norway, Krokodillen (which suggests “the crocodile” in Norwegian) is a 73-acre (about 30-hectare) plateau of rocky outcrops positioned downslope to the west and south of Witch Hazel Hill.
A fast earlier investigation into the area revealed the presence of clays on this historic bedrock. As a result of clays require liquid water to type, they supply essential clues concerning the setting and habitability of early Mars. The detection of clays elsewhere inside the Krokodillen area would reinforce the concept considerable liquid water was current someday within the distant previous, seemingly earlier than Jezero Crater was shaped by the influence of an asteroid. Clay minerals are additionally identified on Earth for preserving natural compounds, the constructing blocks of life.
“If we discover a potential biosignature right here, it could most certainly be from a wholly totally different and far earlier epoch of Mars evolution than the one we discovered final yr within the crater with ‘Cheyava Falls,’” stated Farley, referring to a rock sampled in July 2024 with chemical signatures and buildings that would have been shaped by life way back. “The Krokodillen rocks shaped earlier than Jezero Crater was created, throughout Mars’ earliest geologic interval, the Noachian, and are among the many oldest rocks on Mars
Knowledge collected from NASA’s Mars orbiters recommend that the outer edges of Krokodillen might also have areas wealthy in olivine and carbonate. Whereas olivine varieties from magma, carbonate minerals on Earth usually type throughout a response in liquid water between rock and dissolved carbon dioxide. Carbonate minerals on Earth are identified to be wonderful preservers of fossilized historic microbial life and recorders of historic local weather.
The rover, which celebrated its 1,five hundredth day of floor operations on Could 9, is at the moment analyzing a rocky outcrop in Krokodillen known as “Copper Cove” which will comprise Noachian rocks.
The rover’s arrival at Krokodillen comes with a brand new sampling technique for the nuclear-powered rover that enables for leaving some cored samples unsealed in case the mission finds a extra scientifically compelling geologic characteristic down the highway.
Up to now, Perseverance has collected and sealed two regolith (crushed rock and mud) samples, three witness tubes, and one atmospheric pattern. It has additionally collected 26 rock cores and sealed 25 of them. The rover’s one unsealed pattern is its most up-to-date, a rock core taken on April 28 that the workforce named “Bell Island,” which accommodates small spherical stones known as spherules. If in some unspecified time in the future the science workforce decides a brand new pattern ought to take its place, the rover could possibly be commanded to take away the tube from its bin in storage and dump the earlier pattern.
“We now have been exploring Mars for over 4 years, and each single crammed pattern tube we have now on board has its personal distinctive and compelling story to inform,” stated Perseverance appearing venture scientist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “There are seven empty pattern tubes remaining and a number of open highway in entrance of us, so we’re going to maintain a couple of tubes — together with the one containing the Bell Island core — unsealed for now. This technique permits us most flexibility as we proceed our assortment of numerous and compelling rock samples.”
Earlier than the mission adopted its new technique, the engineering pattern workforce assessed whether or not leaving a tube unsealed might diminish the standard of a pattern. The reply was no.
“The setting contained in the rover met very strict requirements for cleanliness when the rover was constructed. The tube can also be oriented in such a approach inside its particular person storage bin that the chance of extraneous materials getting into the tube throughout future actions, together with sampling and drives, may be very low,” stated Stack Morgan.
As well as, the workforce assessed whether or not remnants of a pattern that was dumped might “contaminate” a later pattern. “Though there’s a probability that any materials remaining within the tube from the earlier pattern might are available in contact with the surface of a brand new pattern,” stated Stack Morgan, “it’s a very minor concern — and a worthwhile alternate for the chance to gather one of the best and most compelling samples once we discover them.”
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2025-071