NASA releases video of the mission to bring rocks and soil from Mars to Earth
A rover launched by the US space agency NASA has collected some of the most valuable samples from an ancient river delta in an effort to detect signs of life on Mars.
The rover found some organic material in some of the recent samples, indicating that Jezero Crater, a crater on Mars, was a potentially habitable place 3.5 billion years ago. These samples are extremely important to scientists on Earth who are looking for evidence of life on the Red Planet.
Now NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are developing plans for one of the most ambitious campaigns ever attempted in space: to safely return the first samples of Martian material to Earth for detailed study.
In a statement, NASA said the process will happen in several steps with multiple spacecraft. The space agency has also released a short animation showing key moments of the Mars sample return campaign.
It shows that the mission will rendezvous with the rover, which is storing samples of Martian rocks and soil in its mantle module. These samples will be loaded onto the rocket before it begins its return journey. The rocket will then be launched from the surface of Mars and return to Earth where scientists will study the samples, as the video shows.
The rock samples are expected to contain distinct biosignatures that will help researchers understand whether life existed on Mars when the climate was much different than it is today.
NASA's second spacecraft successfully landed on Mars in February 2021 after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in July 2020. Since then, the rover has been working on the Red Planet and part of its mission is searching for evidence of the past and microbial life.
Source: websites