NASA’s Perseverance rover continues its mission around an ancient lakebed on Mars, amassing a unique collection of Martian rocks. This car-sized explorer meticulously drills into the Red Planet’s surface, extracting cores of bedrock stored in robust titanium tubes. Scientists aim to eventually return these tubes to Earth for detailed analysis, seeking clues of possible embedded microbial life.
Since its touchdown in 2021, Perseverance has filled 20 out of 43 tubes with bedrock cores. MIT geologists have now remotely determined a critical characteristic of these collected rocks that will aid in unraveling Mars’ geological history.
Published in the journal Earth and Space Science, a study by MIT reveals that researchers have pinpointed the original orientations of most bedrock samples extracted by the rover. Using engineering data from Perseverance itself, such as vehicle positioning and drill mechanics, scientists could estimate how each bedrock sample was positioned before being drilled out from the Martian surface.
Source https://news.mit.edu/2024/study-determines-original-orientations-rocks-drilled-mars-0304
