NASA's Perseverance Mars rover collects 9th Red Planet rock sample

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is digging into the surface of the Red Planet to look for evidence of water in the past and signs of ancient Mars life.

Perseverance is currently exploring an ancient river inside Jezero Crater and recently collected its ninth Martian rock sample not far from where it originally landed.

There's a rock sample in the bag. It's in the tube. It has been years since my team was able to get up close and personal with the river delta. This sample may well get a one-way ticket back to Earth in the future according to the rover's account.

This gorgeous Perseverance rover mosaic can be seen on a tour of Mars' Jezero crater.

Perseverance has been looking for signs of life on Mars in the Jezero Crater for over a year. It's believed that the crater was once home to a lake and a river Delta, making it the perfect place to look for signs of ancient life or water on Mars. If life ever existed on Mars, the rocks in this river delta area may show evidence of ancient living organisms.

Brad Garczynski, a student at Purdue University, wrote on NASA's official Perseverance blog on March 4 that the Delta is calling and we must leave. This is one of the best places to look for evidence of life in the past, as the muds may have contained a record of it.

The car-sized rover is equipped with 23 cameras and a wide variety of instruments to help Perseverance look for ancient biomarkers and places where they may be hiding. There is a drill on the end of the robotic arm.

The microphones on Perseverance allow the rover to record the sounds of Mars.

Ingenuity, a small robotic helicopter that aids the rover by scouting new locations and objects of interest, has been deployed by Perseverance. The longest successful flight mission to date was 169.5 seconds.

As early as 2033, a joint NASA-European Space Agency sample return mission will haul Perseverance's samples back to Earth.

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