NASA's Perseverance rover began moving after completing remote science activities at Enchanted Lake. Now the scientists want to drive it to the front of the delta of the ancient river that flowed into the lake
NASA's Perseverance vehicle began moving after completing remote science activities at Enchanted Lake, an exposure of thinly layered rocks that may be some of the lowest layers of the delta. The vehicle slowly moved east around large sand ripples before turning north en route to Hawksbill Gap, where the team hopes to collect the first set of samples in the delta and eventually climb the delta front.
Planning for the past week at Jezero Crater has focused primarily on progressing the drive with additional survey images to test our next tour and support future planning for sample return from Mars. The team was able to reconnect with Ingenuity after the latest anomaly and continues to collect and analyze the data.
Presbyrans is expected to arrive at the first planned location, named Devils Tanyard, in the upcoming Sols. There we plan to scrape new surface and focus our eyes and instruments to explore the rocks and identify potential sampling sites. This will be the first of five expected "close-up science" stops, as we climb Hawksbill Gap up the stratigraphy of the delta to a place called Rocky Top.
After we complete this first half of the tour, we intend to drop down to sample three of our favorite sites. With these three sample pairs, the team hopes to add to our collection of Martian samples a group of fine-grained clayey mudstones that are good candidates for preserving organic matter and potential ancient microbes, and also coarser-grained sandstones to study material washed past Jezero and constrain the timing of Past activity in the lake.
With each trip of the vehicle and with each sample, the team continues to learn more about this crater that once had water and piece together the story written in the Martian rocks.
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