NASA’s Perseverance Rover Finds Scientific Gold Mine on Mars

What Happened?

NASA’s Perseverance rover has been taking rock samples from an area rich in the geological history of Mars, according to NASA. Perseverance is currently exploring Mars hills and other rock features along the rim of Jezero Crater, which is a dry, bowl-shaped depression north of the Martian equator, that likely held a lake billions of years ago. 

According to Space.com, after reaching the Jezero Crater's western rim in December 2024, Perseverance has focused its attention on the layered terrain of a tall slope called Witch Hazel Hill. Which could hold clues to a period when Mars had a vastly different and possibly much wetter climate. 

Why it Matters

NASA issued a statement saying that in the past few months alone, the car-sized Perseverance has collected samples of five rocks, performed detailed analysis on seven others, and zapped an additional 83 with its laser for remote study — the robotic explorer's fastest pace of scientific data collection since it landed on Mars four years ago.

‘During previous science campaigns in Jezero, it could take several months to find a rock that was significantly different from the last rock we sampled and scientifically unique enough for sampling,’ said Katie Morgan, Perseverance's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. ‘But up here on the crater rim, there are new and intriguing rocks everywhere the rover turns. It has been all we had hoped for and more.’

Recent geological finds on Mars by NASA suggest Mars may once have had liquid water, raising the possibility that there might also have once been life. If there ever was any life on Mars, the most likely way to find evidence of it is by sampling Martian rocks and soil, which is exactly what Perseverance is doing. 

The discovery of evidence of liquid water on the surface of Mars is significant because prior to that the only planet in our solar system known to have liquid water was Earth. If water once existed on Mars, the question is, what happened to it? The current evidence suggests at least some of it froze into solid ice under the Martian surface. The rest was lost to space because the atmosphere of Mars is so thin liquid water cannot exist on its surface. 

How it Affects You

If NASA can prove Mars once had water and life but is now barren, it would also prove that a planet can go from life sustaining to lifeless and barren. Meaning that life can be destroyed on a planetary scale by natural forces.

Even if NASA can’t prove Mars had water or life, the technological advances obtained in the design and building of rovers like Perseverance will continue to provide benefits to people on Earth.