There was life on mars

There was life on mars

NASA ROVER MAKES A STUNNING DISCOVERY ON MARS smackdown

There is evidence to suggest that Mars was once warm, had lakes with liquid water, and may have even been habitable for a brief period of time. 

The red planet wasn't always a barren world ruled by raging dust storms. The loss of Mars' magnetic field is generally thought to be the cause of this drastic transformation.One essential component that determines the course of events on a planet is its magnetic field. The disappearance of the magnetic field was a significant turning point in Mars' history, since it is an entity that can mean the difference between life and death. One of the main goals of numerous Mars missions, including the recently deployed Perseverance Rover, has been to investigate the planet's historical habitability.

Since early 2021, Perseverance has been examining the Martian rocks, and it has now discovered significant indications that there is organic material on Mars. What does it eventually reveal about the history of Mars, how persistence led to this critical discovery, and most significantly, if life did exist on Mars, what did it look like? As part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission, the car-sized Rover Perseverance, also known as Percy, was launched.

Mars was visited by the Rover and his partner Ingenuity on February 18, 2021. In an effort to bring Humanity closer to the unanswered questions, it has since started investigating the red planet. The Rover's exploration of the Jezero crater and search for signs of past microbial life surviving in such conditions was one of the most important tasks assigned to it.

Percy carried 43 sample tubes, 38 of which were assigned to gather diverse samples from various Martian geological regions, including the Jezero crater, where he made his landing. The Rover obtained eight samples during its first science campaign, including igneous rocks that were probably generated deep below as a result of some volcanic activities on the crater floor.

On April 13th, Perseverance began its second mission to gather the unique Martian samples near the ancient river Delta of Jezreel Crater. During this mission, Perseverance collected four additional samples, bringing the total to 12. The new Mars samples' amazing ability to provide light on prehistoric Mars life is what makes them so unique.

These inquiries can be answered by looking into the site's past. The River delta designates an old fan-shaped feature that may have formed around 3.5 billion years ago at the meeting point of a Martian River and a lake. It hosts some fine-grained sediments that were long ago deposited at its base. Therefore, this location represents the mission's best chance to discover the conserved remains of prehistoric microbial life.

The Delta is therefore one of Mars' prime areas for searching for evidence of microscopic earlier life. Organic compounds were discovered in the delta by Percy using a drill on the end of its robotic arm and a sophisticated sample collection system. The Curiosity Rover and persistence have previously discovered organics on Mars. But the most recent discovery was made in a location where salts and sediment were dumped into a lake, suggesting that the conditions there may have previously led to the emergence of life.

The samples that Percy gathered are quite varied. For instance, one sample that he gathered is a sandstone that resembles grains and rock fragments that were far from the Jezero crater, while the other is an intriguing mud stone. Organic materials The Rover is also scraped off portions of the surfaces of Wildcat Ridge, a one-meter-wide rock that most likely created billions of years ago when mud and fine sand accumulated in a saltwater lake that was evaporating. The sample taken from this rock was examined using one of Percy's Sherlock tools, and it was discovered to contain a group of organic chemicals that are connected to sulfate minerals.

This is intriguing because sulfate minerals can provide details about the wet environments in which sedimentary rock layers formed. Additionally, the correlation suggests that when the lake evaporated, sulfates and organic materials got deposited, preserved, and concentrated in this area, supporting the idea that Percy is exploring the correct area. Organic compounds may serve as a veiled cue that life is present. These molecules are made up of a wide range of compounds with carbon as a primary component and are frequently supplemented by hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Although some of these compounds can be formed by an abiotic process, others are the chemical building blocks of life. They can also contain other elements like nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. Thus, their presence is considered as a potential bio signature acting as prospective past-life evidence. Perseverance has amassed an incredible collection of Martian samples for analysis in its first two science campaigns. Each sample is kept separately in a titanium tube that weighs less than 57 grams each. The tubes have a white coating on the outside to prevent the samples from being heated by the sun, which could potentially alter their chemical composition.

After securing all the gathered samples in tubes, the final step is to transport them all home for a thorough analysis. Developing strategies to safely return the first Martian samples to Earth is a joint effort between NASA and ESA. According to what has been decided thus far, it is planned to land a sample return Lander near or in Jezero Crater. The Lander will carry a small rocket on which the samples collected by Perseverance will be loaded, and two Ingenuity-like helicopters are also on the table to provide additional support in retrieving samples from the surface of Mars

.The sample cache will be launched from Mars after it has been collected, and a different spacecraft will then be sent into orbit around Mars to capture it before returning it to Earth. To get the samples from the red planet to the blue planet safely, the entire strategy is intricate and must be executed properly. Let's see what else the Perseverance Rover finds on Mars. According to the best estimates, the agencies hope to implement their plans successfully by early to mid-2030.