NASA is preparing to bring a piece of Mars back to Earth. The Perseverance rover needs to collect and store samples from across the Jezero crater in order to be able to take them to Earth. A new area of the crater called the Yori Pass is an exciting place to look for evidence of ancient life.
The Yori Pass is located in an ancient river delta, where water once flowed and which could have been hospitable to organisms millions of years ago. The area is full of sandstone, a type of rock formed from particles carried by water which are deposited and rearranged into stone.
Experts say that the area is a good place to look for ancient life. "We often prioritize study of fine-grained sedimentary rocks like this one in our search for organics and potential biosignatures," said Perseverance deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory, in a statement.
The rocks in this area are similar to the ones that the rover explored this summer. The Yori Pass outcrop is very similar to theHogwallow Flats outcrop, where we found very fine- grained sedimentary rocks. The rock bed is located at the same elevation as Hogwallow and has a large footprint on the surface.
Clay minerals, which form in water and are good at preserving organicmolecules, are found in fine-grained sedimentary rocks, which are important in the search for life. If there was ever a chance of life on Mars, it would be best to look at clay minerals because they are more likely to show life than other types of rock.
The goal of the Mars Sample Return mission is to get the samples back to a lab on Earth in order to perform a full analysis.
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