Sep. 11 (EIRNS)—NASA on Friday announced that the examination of the rock segment successfully grabbed by the Perseverance rover on Mars is providing exciting results. “It looks like our first rocks reveal a potentially habitable sustained environment,” Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley of Caltech said in a NASA statement on Friday. “It’s a big deal that the water was there a long time.” If groundwater was present for long stretches, it could have been conducive to microbial life, the report says.
Perseverance has taken two samples from a rock they nicknamed “Rochette,” which “appears to be volcanic in origin.” They add that the samples “could end up on Earth as soon as the early 2030s. NASA is working on an ambitious sample-return mission. A closer study under lab conditions on our planet could give scientists tons of information about the crater’s history.”
“The salt minerals in these first two rock cores may also have trapped tiny bubbles of ancient Martian water,” NASA said. “If present, they could serve as microscopic time capsules, offering clues about the ancient climate and habitability of Mars.”
