PERSEVERANCE
ROVER - SCI & TECH
News:
Ancient Lakebed
Discovered on Mars by NASA’s Perseverance Rover
What's
in the news?
●
NASA’s
Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021,
has made a remarkable discovery
recently: an ancient lakebed in Jezero crater, which was once filled with
water and may have harboured life billions of years ago.
Key
takeaways:
●
The rover’s ground-penetrating radar,
called RIMFAX, has confirmed that
the crater floor is composed of layers of sediments that were deposited by a
river and a lake that existed in the crater about 3.7 billion years ago.
●
The
lake eventually dried up, leaving behind a large delta of sand and silt.
●
The sediments were then eroded by wind and
water, forming the geologic features that Perseverance can see today.
Perseverance
Rover:
●
It is a robotic explorer to land on Mars as part of NASA’s ongoing Mars
2020 Mission.
Aim:
●
Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock
and soil) for possible return to Earth.
Objective:
●
The rover will collect samples of rock and
soil, encase them in tubes, and leave them on the planet's surface to be returned to Earth at a future date.
Launch:
●
It was launched on July 30, 2020 from Cape
Canaveral, Florida.
Landing:
●
Successfully landed on the surface of Mars's Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.
Features:
●
It is about the size of a car, but weighs
only about 1,025 kilograms with all instruments on board.
●
Power
source: Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
(MMRTG). Converts heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium into
electricity.