Why These Rocks on Mars Shocked Perseverance Scientists the Most | 1st Year Supercut

It is one of the oldest questions humanity has ever asked: are we alone in the universe with a universe as vast as ours? Could it really be true that we are the only ones in it? Surely there was some other inhabited world in the 19th century. the question became more specific: how common exactly was life? Could it be common enough to have arisen several times in our own solar system? Could there exist on the planet more similar to ours? Could there be life on Mars? The speculation infuriated science fiction writers. I imagined entire extraterrestrial civilizations on the red planet, although this died down in the last century when our first probes and satellites went there and sent back photos of nothing but arid deserts, the question did not disappear completely, it was simply rephrased: could there have been life ever? on Mars not now, but in the ancient past, and for all our research to this day, it is a question that only has one answer, perhaps thanks to probes that were made before we knew liquid water ever existed on Mars and where there is liquid.

In water there is the possibility of life existing. This was an incredible discovery when it was made in the 1970s, but it is not proof. It's a question that, if proven positive, would forever alter our view of the entire universe, because if life arose twice here in our solar system it al

most

certainly arose somewhere else, but until we find the first example fossilized life on another planet we won't know for sure, so NASA said, "Let's make sure" that this is a video about the rover that went to check. I'm Alex McColgan. and you're watching astrum, join me today in this super cut as we delve into the first campaign of the Perseverance Rover, NASA's machine tasked with collecting samples of fossilized microbial life on Mars to return to us before the end of the decade.

Be the rover that finally raises the age-old question of whether we are alone in resting. So what was that first campaign like? Perseverance launched on July 30, 2020 on an Atlas V rocket. There was a large launch window around this time when Earth and Mars were aligned. in fact, China and the United Arab Emirates also launched a rover and a probe respectively during this same launch window. The cruise lasted seven months and system checks showed that Perseverance was in good condition for atmospheric entry. The landing is the

most

daring - A devastating part of the entire journey, the extreme temperatures and speed involved make it very dangerous.

However, NASA has had a lot of practice and seems to be getting better every time NASA has this cool visualization on their website that I want to show you because I want you to understand that landing a car-sized Rover on another planet is no chore. easy. First, about 4,000 kilometers from the landing site and traveling at more than 16,000 kilometers per hour, the cruise stage is separated and thrusters are used to stop. The spacecraft rotates at an altitude of 120 kilometers The spacecraft accelerates to more than 19,000 kilometers per hour But this is where the Martian atmosphere begins to slow down due to turbulence in the atmosphere Thrusters are being used to keep the spacecraft stable and maintain This heat shield facing forward as the friction of the atmosphere is heating up.

The shield reaches more than 1,300 degrees Celsius. Onboard computers autonomously monitor its position and keep it pointed at its final landing target, 60 kilometers high and 16 kilometers from the target's atmosphere. has reduced the speed of Perseverance to 3,000 kilometers per hour. This is where things start to get interesting, as the spacecraft was equipped with several video cameras that gave us an unprecedented view of the landing sequence. First the huge 21 meter parachute was deployed. You may notice the strange pattern in red and white. This is useful for

scientists

to see the orientation of the parachute, but there is also hidden code.

They are powerful things. The motto of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory written in binary code with JPL's GPS location outside. Add 10 kilometers upwards and, at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour, the heat shield is released, reducing weight and exposing Perseverance to the Martian atmosphere for the first time. At about four kilometers high, the spacecraft begins taking images of the surface to look for a safe place to land. two kilometers up once satisfied with the landing site, the upper deck of the spacecraft separates leaving only the

perseverance

and the rocket booster Descent stage Rockets are necessary as the parachute can no longer slow the fall The Mars atmosphere is simply too thin the rocket stage decelerates falling from 300 kilometers per hour to zero and floats 20 meters above the surface, the Rover itself descends using a cable suspended by what is known as a sky crane and once which is safely on the ground, the rocket stage is released to crash into a safe. from a distance, how amazing that is and to actually be able to see it is incredible after a seven month trip.

Perseverance landed on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021. Perseverance is NASA's most ambitious rover yet to give you an idea of ​​the scale. The thing is huge. NASA has basically sent a car to Mars. However, you may notice that its appearance is largely based on the curiosity of its famous predecessor, although it may look almost identical, there have been some major improvements to the design based on what did not work as well. In Curiosity, a notable difference is the wheels. Curiosity's wheels have shown serious wear so far, so Perseverance's wheels are thicker and more durable. They are also less wide but have a larger diameter.

Another improvement is its robotic arm, which is longer and stronger than Curiosity's, but the most notable differences are, unsurprisingly, the scientific instruments on board because, while Curiosity was designed to investigate whether Mars ever was A place conducive to life, Perseverance is looking for real evidence of fossilized life, the first step will be to find compelling

rocks

and it has an advanced set of instruments to help you do just that. On the mast is a powerful camera called a super camera that uses a laser to identify the composition of the mats. The camera itself takes a photo to visually identify what the laser is pointing at.

In reality, it is not this camera that takes the impressive panoramas that you will see later, however, this instrument is really important: it can analyze a rock several meters away, which means that the Rover does not need to move within range of the hand of a rock you want. identify, allowing you to move to a new region faster. 3D panoramic cameras are also located on the mast and can zoom in and take videos once intriguing

rocks

have been identified with the cameras. Perseverance can zoom in and examine them with the spectrometers on its arm. There are two cameras on the arm, a normal color camera called Watson and another laser camera that can also take microscopic images called Sherlock.

Interestingly, I found these images in the raw files of the cameras and upon investigation it turned out that they were brought to Test that the cameras are focusing correctly and that the laser is reading the material correctly. There are various materials on the Rover including space suit fabric and some with Sherlock Holmes Easter eggs on it, for example this has a maze with a small picture of Sherlock Holmes in the middle and this. rock sample has 221B Baker written on it the famous address in the books Apparently one of these sections of Rock Cross is actually from a suspected Mars meteorite, if true it would be the first known case of a Mars rock making a trip Complete to and from Earth and Back, another of the instruments is basically a weather station, an instrument that will track wind, temperature, humidity, pressure and dust levels.

Towards the rear of the Rover is a ground-penetrating radar instrument that will be used to view geological features beneath the surface. and there is also a rather special experimental module, Moxie, which will be used to see if oxygen can be extracted from the Martian atmosphere, a crucial need for the survival of future human colonies and, surprisingly, even a way to produce rocket fuel by leaving the A planet's gravity naturally requires a lot of fuel for Mars has lighter gravity, it still requires 30 to 40 metric tons of propellant, it's even harder to do on Earth and it gets even harder if you also have to carry all the fuel you will need to make the trip home again, however, knowing that we could produce most or all of that fuel from the liquid oxygen found on the planet makes space travel much more feasible.

The latest experiment on board ties into Perseverance's primary goal: finding compelling rocks that could harbor microbial fossils once the camera and spectrometers are ready. have identified promising candidates, the arm is equipped with a drill that can chip away at the top layer of a rock to expose the uneroded surface beneath or if the mission team wants to extract a sample from The Rock, the drill can also remove a chunk from the arm. will feed the sample to the body of the Rover, where a second arm will move the core to a place where it is sealed and then to a place where it is stored in one of the 20 caches that will be on board, interestingly, although Perseverance was cleaned as much as possible before launch to avoid contaminating Mars and also these samples, even small traces of gases from the Rover itself could distort the readings.

To combat this, there are also some core tubes that are pre-filled with core materials that can each capture molecular and particulate contaminants. The core tube will be opened on Mars to capture the ambient environment, then sealed like normal sample tubes. Comparing the blank tubes with the cached samples will allow

scientists

to know what the contaminants are and eliminate them, but unfortunately

perseverance

will not be able to. confirm the existence of microbial life on its own, it is actually designed as a precursor mission, once Perseverance has filled all the caches, it will place them for another mission to collect.

NASA wants this to be a sample return mission, however, the means of collecting these samples has changed. A launch currently scheduled for 2026 using a Rover to collect the samples and deliver them back to a rocket where this rocket will rendezvous with an Orbiter that will make the return trip to Earth with the samples in our hands in 2028 has yet to be finalized. It's a very complicated system, so let's hope the mission teams really get it right in the next few

year

s when the Rover turns on its cameras and observes its surroundings for the first time as it stands looking out over the red, barren, lonely landscape.

As we expected from Mars, the terrain around it was mostly flat, although interspersed with rocky outcrops. This was intentional. Scientists had deliberately taken Perseverance to a place where its wheels could transport it freely and where it could find places of particular scientific interest for that purpose. They had chosen the Yazaro crater thanks to the rock outcrops that surround the crater. Perseverance could collect rock samples from many different geological periods without major drilling, helping scientists reconstruct the geological history of Yezero Crater and get a better picture of the most likely places to find life. It would spend some time investigating sections of Yezero Crater near its landing site in what is known as the Crater Floor campaign before moving on to the Yezero Delta as part of the Delta Front campaign.

That Perseverance would be on the move almost immediately, eager to begin its Mission thanks to the rock outcrops surrounding the crater. Perseverance could collect rock samples from many different geological periods, giving it plenty of opportunities to begin its search however it wants. would be wrong despite landing on Mars in February, it wasn't until almost five months later that Perseverance made a significant effort to leave its landing site and begin its journey and this wasn't just because scientists took the time to Carefully test each piece of scientific equipment. and their software to make sure everything was running smoothly.

You see, Perseverance was not alone. In fact, you might be surprised to find out, but you could say it was because Perseverance was pregnant, cradled in Perseverance's landing gear, hidden by a shield from the dust of the Martian winds and atmosphere. she had brought with her a secondsmallest passenger to Mars and much of Perseverance's first few months of time were spent helping bring that second passenger to the world. This second passenger was going to be Perseverance's companion on the journey ahead, as well as an interesting technological demonstration. The smaller robot was not a Rover, its name was Ingenuity and it was the first attempt at a helicopter on Mars after carrying out several tests with Perseverance's own software and hardware.

Scientists turned their attention to this smaller 1.8 kilogram drone. The atmosphere on Mars is approximately 100 times larger. thinner than Earth's, making it uncertain whether a helicopter's rotating blades would work there, it would be difficult to displace enough air to create lift. Ingenuity was incredibly light to compensate for this and its rotor could spin at revolutions of over 2000 RPM, its only scientific equipment was a camera, but this would be invaluable in helping Perseverance find the best routes through the potentially complicated Martian terrain, So on March 21, almost a month after landing, labor began. Perseverance began by removing its Dash Shield, allowing Ingenuity to sample the Martian air.

However, it is a slow process with scientists constantly checking each piece of data to make sure everything is working as it should. It wasn't until April 3 that Perseverance finally placed Ingenuity on the hard Martian soil and allowed it to experience the first cold of it. At night on Mars temperatures on Mars reach lows of -100 degrees Celsius, so outside of Perseverance's protective heaters it's no small feat that Ingenuity survived the night without problems, but scientists were delighted that this part The mission went smoothly during this stage of Perseverance's mission. He looked like a proud father as Ingenuity began to take its first wobbly steps, although just like a father, Perseverance couldn't resist taking a selfie or two to show off to his friends on Earth.

The flights did not go completely smoothly after taking the time to test his rotors at different speeds. Ingenuity had some software problems that worried the engineers who had worked on it; However, on April 19, Perseverance was able to record that the system is powered by solar energy. The drone attempted the first controlled flight on another planet. The flight was done autonomously, as the time it would take for a signal to travel from Earth to Mars would create too much delay to attempt to fly remotely and there were many unknowns. Mars has lighter gravity compared to ours, as well as having thinner air, which meant testing the rotor on Earth didn't necessarily mean it would work on Mars.

It is difficult to adequately replicate lower gravity on Earth, for example, but fortunately and with incredible smoothness, Ingenuity reached an altitude of three meters and stayed floating there for 39.1 seconds just as scientists were very excited when the technology demonstration that had been proposed just six

year

s earlier had proven to be a success. Ingenuity was not expected to last long on Mars, but it went on and on. he flew farther and higher than on every previous attempt, he didn't crash, he didn't break up, and in fact he has become a useful Scout for his perseverance in finding good routes for the Rover to take or for searching for points of interest. too small for satellites to detect.

The ingenuity ranged from a disposable technical demonstration at the beginning of the mission to a valuable aid and abet for the Perseverance Rover. What about Perseverance? The Martian Rover was not completely idle during this time. Perseverance was able to test a lot of its own equipment while it waited. Ingenuity Perseverance was equipped with a microphone and signed off on its hope of obtaining the first audio sample from the Martian surface shortly after landing on Mars. Perseverance was able to do just that, giving us our first idea of ​​what the wind sounds like on Mars certainly adding to the desolate feel of the landscape.

Perseverance also spent time driving short distances to test its engines, took panoramas of the surrounding landscape, and even successfully extracted oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Red Planet's atmosphere using its Moxie instrument, which stands for Mars In Situ Oxygen Resource. The utilization experiment managed to produce around 10 grams of oxygen in an hour, which isn't much, but to be fair, Moxie is just a prototype the size of a car battery; It would need to be 100 times larger if we are actually going to use it. on the red planet to support human interests, however, just knowing that it works is an exciting step forward, but as fascinating as all of these things are, there was one thing that still needed perseverance.

He had come here to discover something very important. Did it ever exist? Life on Mars and therefore during this period of inactivity, scientists were busy plotting the best possible route for Perseverance, although Perseverance's landing was one of the most precise Mars landings that NASA had achieved so far, there were still many days of travel left from some of the 40 meters. High outcroppings of a rock on the edge of a crater known as South Saita that scientists want to investigate Between Southsidea and Perseverance's landing site, there was a dangerous dune field filled with loose sand that was impossible for the Rover to cross without running risking being stuck forever, which would mean the end of the mission, scientists would have to decide the best possible route around the dunes: whether it would be better to travel counterclockwise around the crater, which would allow you to reach outcrops faster, or it would be better to travel clockwise, which would take longer, but would allow the rover to stop at more interesting rocks along the way at the end, as is often the case in exploration Space, it all came down to efficiency, scientists chose the second option to allow you to do as much science as possible in as many areas as possible.

In the limited time the rover had available, it was finally given the go-ahead and so, on June 1, almost five months after arriving on the red planet, Perseverance's wheels came to life and the rover finally left the safety of its home. landing place. and embarked on its primary mission of collecting rock samples from places where life could have flourished for ultimate return for analysis to Earth. The search for extraterrestrial life could now begin on Earnest with Ingenuity following to keep Perseverance company, of course, millions of years ago. A massive object had crashed into the surface of Mars, the resulting crater was hundreds of meters deep and 40 kilometers in diameter and due to the different geological conditions that existed at that time, it soon began to fill with water over time, this crater turned into a huge lake. and earned the name yezero, which literally means lake in some Slavic languages.

Massive rivers began to flow into Azero Crater, carving valleys into the terrain and depositing all the resulting sediment over enormous deltas. This is why Yezero was selected as the site for Perseverance's mission. If life functioned in the same way here as on Earth, this place could be rife with possibilities for the emergence and spread of life, as Mars is now a barren wasteland, the kinds of things Perseverance is looking for wouldn't be immediately obvious. that he swam in Lake Yaziro would have lived dead and fallen to the lake bed where the accumulated silt of the river would have buried him in Hard Rock.

Perseverance would need to make good use of all the tools at his disposal: his arm-mounted Sherlock ultraviolet spectrometer and his Pixel X-ray fluorescent spectrometer to find this evidence, however, it is important to choose targets carefully. Perseverance has limited resources available. He only has a little more than 30 sample tubes to store rock cores for the trip home. As tempting as it may be just take a sample right where you landed. Perseverance was needed to collect only samples from the places most likely to provide evidence of signs of life or offer particular information about the formation and age of Yezero Crater to identify better possible locations for later, as such perseverance did. did not begin drilling immediately, but instead began traveling south from its landing location at Octavia E Butler Landing, named after the science fiction author, to the area known as the rough fractured box floor, although this location It was less than a mile away from Perseverance's landing site.

Perseverance would not come. in this new location for almost 60 days this is because the unknown rocky surface of Mars is full of obstacles for a rover. You will notice the rocks that are scattered on the Martian surface. Perseverance would have to choose its path carefully around these like rovers. The 52.5 centimeter diameter wheels can only pass over large objects. The soft terrain presents as many dangers as the previous Martian Rover Spirit met an unfortunate end after getting stuck in a sand dune, so choosing your path is a not-too-difficult and rocky balancing act. but not too smooth either and in the past these decisions would have been made on Earth with an average signal delay of 20 minutes, no wonder previous Rovers had traveled so slowly, however Perseverance had gotten an upgrade in comparison with Spirit and opportunity.

Advanced AI software called Auto. Navigation on the Perseverance Rover allows it to map its environment and choose for itself the best path through it, although there is still some monitoring of Earth. This greater degree of independence that Perseverance can achieve on the fly while driving allows the Perseverance Rover to travel. much faster than the previous Rovers, allowing more science to be done, and speaking of science, on July 20, Perseverance successfully navigated its way to the packed, fractured, rough floor, taking things slow, the Scientists chose a rock to first test perseverance is a reproduction. drilling systems, their braid attempt was made on a cobble nicknamed guillaum and was a simple success, the drill cut off the top and gave scientists an idea of ​​the type of stones Perseverance was driving on by examining the size of The grains, chemical composition, and other details that scientists learned about the type of rocks: were they sedimentary, the type that probably contained fossilized remains and other artifacts, or igneous rocks formed from magma.

What they saw hardened them and on August 6, scientists chose another target rock nicknamed Rubin to take their first sample of the actual core because of the time zones involved, it was only 2 a.m. PST when more than 90 engineers and scientists gathered online to witness the fruits of their years of Labor perseverance successfully called up to the three-inch depth it had been programmed to reach. Afterwards, everything seemed to go well for the next six hours. Perseverance painstakingly picked up the core, placed it in one of its tubes, and moved it to its adaptive caching array, the place where core samples are processed due to the nature of the mission.

It is vitally important that no contaminants are allowed to enter the tube or else it could invalidate the entire process. Finally, Perseverance transferred the now sealed tube to its storage unit. The scientists were elated at this perfect first time success, but then more data came in and the scientists realized that there was a problem, the sealed tube was empty, confusion filled them, where had the sample gone because to the limits of technology? The scientists were unable to record every movement of Perseverance on camera. It only has so many cameras, so they had to rely on perseverance to follow orders. sent it, but here it seemed that Perseverance had followed their orders, and yet the weight sensors in the storage unit informed them that the tube was missing additional weight.

The core was gone. Perseverance drove back and looked between the tracks, but there was no sign of a The core thrown out in time, the scientists came to the bittersweet conclusion that Perseverance had not malfunctioned or done anything wrong; it was the rock itself that was to blame in the act of drilling. The unique nature of the Rubin rock meant that it was so brittle that when perseverance was gone. to collect the core sample, it had completely turned into dust. Perseverance could not collect it in that state. Scientists had tested Perseverance coring in a hundred different types of rocks on Earth andHe had never encountered a problem like this before all the other rocks were called. successfully, so while this was good because it meant that perseverance was not broken.

He cast a shadow over the rest of the mission. Would all of Perseverance's encounters with the Rock be failures like this? However, NASA wasn't about to give up without trying, they reasoned that the rocks in this area were probably particularly eroded and other rocks on Mars might be able to hold together better. It was with renewed determination that Perseverance tried again to focus her camera around her. Perseverance spotted some rocks 150 meters away that were as different from the crumbling cobblestones as the scientists dubbed them. These new Citadel rocks, which is French for castle, were possibly expecting something a little more fortified this time, as these rocks jutted out of the landscape, it seemed reasonable that they would be made of a stronger material than flat cobblestones, if they resisted erosion, they could do it.

A better job of holding together under a drill, Perseverance approached Ridge and prepared for another attempt on 1 September. NASA once again held its breath as Perseverance attempted its second core attempt. You can really get an idea of ​​how thorough this process is. There is a one-month gap between each attempt, everything on Earth has to be checked and double-checked, every bit of data analyzed for perfect conditions, every decision carefully thought out and discussed whether it would work on the second try, the Perseverance Drill collected. a core that was six centimeters long and possibly with Rye's exasperation before sealing the core in a tube, Perseverance spun it and added an extra step.

He took a photo of what it contained to confirm to everyone on Earth that it actually contained a core, this time scientists must. I was very relieved when the data came back. Perseverance had successfully taken the core and transferred it to its storage area. The core, nicknamed Mondinier, was ready to be brought back to Earth on a future mission where its secrets could be better analyzed in a larger laboratory. Perseverance took another core sample that day just to be absolutely sure that they were possibly on a roll and who could blame them. They were now one step closer to knowing if life ever existed on Mars, although this sample was just the beginning. had no sign of life in it had advanced a little further in Uncharted passed about a week and was a considerable success, quickly followed by a third and a fourth, both taken from the rock called rochette in early September, the bottom campaign of the crater was At that time everything was going well, unfortunately it had to pause for solar conjunction due to the layout of our solar system.

Mars and Earth don't always have a line of sight to each other, sometimes they are on opposite sides of the solar system, this increases the delay it takes for NASA to send and receive messages from Perseverance, but that's not the worst problem when Mars and Earth are perfectly opposite each other, communication between the planets becomes completely impossible for one simple reason: the Sun, no radio signal can penetrate this cosmological giant. As such, there was little scientists could do except wait for these orbiting bodies to separate. Perseverance has advanced AI on board, but it still needs to communicate with NASA from time to time to plan its route, update its mission, and report its findings so that it wasn't until November 2021 that things were actually able to get back up and running, but the NASA was not idle during this solar conjunction when Perseverance turned on again, NASA scientists had already thoroughly resolved their next objective.

There is a June field known as saita. Among these dunes are a series of outcrops that were of particular interest to the Perseverance Mission because the different layers of exposed rock they gave access to. These different layers likely represented different geological eras, which would give scientists the most accurate picture. clear story of yezero, in addition to giving them the opportunity to find life itself. The outcrops are of particular interest because Perseverance's drilling team only allows it to dig several centimeters deep except for outcrops where erosion had exposed these layers to the Martian atmosphere. Perseverance would not have access to them, however the sand dunes are Of particular danger to a rover like Perseverance with help from an entire solar system away, if Perseverance started spinning its wheel on a particularly loose section of dune, it would likely mean the end of its mission, as the faithful companion of Perseverance, Ingenuity, was sent to conduct a preliminary reconnaissance if it could find a route through the sand dunes that it appears.

Sure perseverance was able to take his sample tubes to vital saita outcrops. The device began its exploration before solar conjunction and made several flights from September to December, flying at a height of 10 meters. These reconnaissance expeditions allowed scientists to choose the perfect route. He set out at the beginning of November 2021 beginning his exploration of the dunes, he chose his path carefully making sure not to travel too fast in case he fell into some unforeseen sand trap, he moved between dunes that were a meter high finding the path most flat, but fortunately Ingenuity had led him to true Perseverance, he was able to reach the rock ledge known as Bragg Now that he had his technique mastered, Perseverance was quickly able to obtain new samples and decided to call the first empty sample container a sample of the atmosphere .

These next two samples were officially of perseverance. The fifth and sixth and the third and fourth sample tubes. Rock samples from these accumulated samples, scientists were able to make an unexpected discovery: they were not sedimentary rocks as initially anticipated, but Perseverance had discovered the igneous rock Olivine. Olivine is a type of mineral that can actually be found here on Earth, for example in parts of Australia, unlike sedimentary rocks which are made up of particles of sand and other detritus that slowly accumulate on top of each other. On the other hand, over time, an igneous rock like olivine is formed by the cooling of magma itself.

That at one time or another the Azero crater must have witnessed some volcanic activity, although this might initially seem like bad news, one could correctly conclude that not much life can be found in the magma. Scientists were able to discern signs of water erosion in the rocks. The ridges at the ends of the crater showed signs of water movement; whatever volcanic activity had occurred here, the water that created the Yazaro delta must have arrived after it had already cooled, so the presence of igneous rocks was actually good news. Igneous rocks usually have a very high height. minerals This is why the areas around volcanoes are so fertile the presence of water and rocks with high mineral content could have been the perfect conditions for life.

Overall, the Perseverance mission seemed to be going well, but Mars wasn't done with it, Desert No Da captured its prey quite easily on Wednesday, December 29 on the return trip out of Saita. Perseverance stopped to take another sambal from another rock outcrop known as isol, specifically from a small stone known as Rubin. Initially, things seemed to be going well. The cord of perseverance is the goal. rock without problems, he placed his core in the test tube, but when it came time to transfer the test tube to the drill bit carousel on the Rover chassis, he encountered unexpected resistance, something was blocking the tube's entrance to the carousel.

Perseverance immediately stopped its process when it detected the anomaly and sent a request to NASA asking what it should do next through week-long exchanges. NASA was able to use Perseverance's cameras to look inside the carousel and look at them there were four small pebbles. This may not seem like a big deal, but pebbles preventing samples from being stored inside the rover would halt Perseverance's entire sample collection mission. It was likely that these rocks had somehow fallen out of the tube during that specific sample collection, possibly again due to the unexpectedly crumbly nature of Martian rocks. The crumbling rocks had already cost Perseverance a sample, now they could mean the end of the entire mission, but the Perseverance team had a plan for situations like this and, carefully, the Rover began to fiercely enact it.

Perseverance began by taking photographs of the ground beneath it. He wanted to see what was already there so that once the pebbles were spilled onto the ground, scientists could count the new arrivals and make sure they matched what had been previously seen inside the carousel. Secondly, he did something he was never designed to do. Did you empty the central sample tube from it onto the floor? It must have been a shame this was done. However, it was important to know how much was left inside the tube to see how much was likely to be in the carousel.

Furthermore, this would allow a new isol sample to be taken. to be taken later, maximizing the efficiency of his sample space, thirdly, Perseverance began to do the only thing left to him: he began to move by spinning his carousel and was able to dislodge two of the four offending pebbles at that very moment by checking twice the floor later. The scientists were able to detect that both Pebbles were no longer on the ride, but there were still two Pebbles left and these proved to be stubborn and not fall over with the rotation of the carousel, so Perseverance took things up a notch and began moving away in looking for a place Where the slope was steepest, the plan was to place Perseverance at a forward tilt angle so that gravity could begin pulling on the last two pebbles.

The sturdy base meant that this could be done relatively safely, although tipping over would have been a disaster so the scientists were careful not to choose a spot that was too steep. A suitable spot was just five meters away. Perseverance drove there and reached their location only to make a surprising discovery the other two rocks had disappeared Initially cautious and then elated, the NASA team deduced that the noise from Perseverance through the Sands view had caused the rocks to move and then fall , they made sure to carefully test their equipment to make sure the tubes could reattach correctly and only once everything proved to be functional did they claim perseverance of success was I ready to start again This may seem like a short drama but my account of the story could have been misleading it was December 29 when Perseverance first picked up these stowaways it was only January 27, 2022, a whole month after it was fully confirmed that The Rocks were missing, this is because when you have spent millions of dollars to take a piece of Hardware to another planet, care is always the watchword of the day, although sometimes it takes weeks to plan how to overcome a challenge.

It's usually worth the longevity of the mission thanks to careful decision making and moving through the desert correctly. The Perseverance mission was now able to continue successfully collecting its samples and overcoming another challenge. He emerged from the sands with Zaita Sans behind Perseverance. Perseverance's crater floor campaign was coming to an end, it would finally be time for Delta itself, if life ever existed in the now dry waters of Yazaro, the proof of it would most likely be in those ancient river deposits, so it was time for perseverance to really start booking it saita's children had forced perseverance to travel carefully choosing their route carefully to avoid getting stuck in loose sand, however the terrain outside of saitar is much softer, This allowed Perseverance to unleash its full potential as it traveled up and around the Saita Dunes, Perseverance was demonstrated by setting the land speed record for a Mars Rover. 319.8 meters traveled in a single day, admittedly it doesn't sound very fast, the distance is only the length of three football fields, but this is impressive for a Mars rover, this was about 50 percent Further in one day than the previous record of 220 meters set by the Opportunity rover in 2005 and keep in mind that it did all this by itself by choosing its route with its autonomous AI system.

Evaluating the terrain around you on the fly and just being able to choose the best route to avoid obstacles and difficult areas is incredible and given that Perseverance's top speed is believed to be 120 meters per hour, Perseverancestill has many reservations. To take advantage and perseverance was not done there, he also completed the first multi-day trip on Mars managing to continue driving without any input from Earth for a period of three days. This has always been a challenge for rovers, usually requiring human intervention and regular updates. are necessary to help negate the uncertainty that always creeps into a Rover's awareness of where it is - without this intervention, it can get lost and possibly drive into dangerous areas, but Perseverance's automatic navigation was able to avoid this problem, although there is still some uncertainty in Perseverance. track its own location well enough that it can be left running without these periodic updates, potentially meaning it can be left running over weekends or holidays without any supervision from Earth, allowing it to travel much further fast and get further to the places where the best science can happen, it's not that Perseverance wasn't doing science on the way to the Delta, it just did some of it autonomously too.

Oh, and I think it's time we talked about Perseverance's heat ray, which can use, you guessed it autonomously, yes, Perseverance has a heat ray that can decide for itself when to deploy it. I mentioned this laser before when I talked about Perseverance's super camera. What I didn't mention was that this laser not only aimed at interesting targets, it vaporized them when I first heard about it. About this, I began to suspect that whoever designed Perseverance had read War of the Worlds and wanted to prevent any possible invasion of Earth by striking the first blow and, although this is not the case, Perseverance's laser is not a joke, it can heating rocks to a temperature of 10,000 degrees Celsius, melting them into plasma and vaporizing them Before you ask, this amazing tool is designed to be used in evaluating the chemical composition of rocks, not to vaporize aliens, heating rocks to a temperature such that the light they begin to emit can be evaluated to see what chemical markers it carries.

Different elements and compounds release light at different wavelengths. Seeing what light a rock does or does not emit when it is overheated can be key to identifying its composition. chemistry for some scientific analysis at the site should also be noted that this was done on a very, very small scale on March 11, 2022. Perseverance hit a fascinatingly purple rock a total of 150 times in the same spot, vaporizing its outer layers to see what was behind the surface; However, all of these repeated vaporizations alone Tackling a hole in the rock that was a single millimeter deep is not a weapon to fight the Martians, but these are the tools Perseverance employs as he continues his journey working with scientists along the way. towards a braid and laser several samples for a while on the scientific route.

He even accidentally picked up a rock on the road in one of his wheels. This small stone was considered not to hinder the rover's movements in any way, so scientists have left it alone until now. The rock has accompanied Perseverance over a distance of 8.5 kilometers over the course of four months and has proven to be a much less danger to his Mission than the last rocks he accidentally acquired, but with the arrival of one friend, another would begin to abandon technology, although impressive is not infallible on May 3, 2022 as perseverance was reaching the end of its journey towards itself Rose Delta Communications ingeniously abandoned the helicopter Ingenuity had accompanied perseverance from the beginning of its travel the two machines traveling together to the red planet and helping each other carry out their different missions Ingenuity had already amazed the world, being the first flying machine on Mars, it had explored the route to perseverance during most of its mission, detecting the dangers in advance so that perseverance could avoid them, but the devices' expected 30-day lifespan had already passed.

Every day that the helicopter was still working. a gift and one that couldn't keep giving forever when Ingenuity first started on its routine flight. Perseverance thought nothing of it. The two machines were not always in line of sight of each other, but instead maintained contact with frequent radio checks. However, when the next scheduled call should have arrived. Ingenuity was unable to verify that Perseverance froze in its tracks. Scientists desperately thought about what could have happened to the small helicopter. They theorized that if some type of failure had occurred in Ingenuity, it was possible that it would have crashed. low power safe mode to preserve itself, so it lost its Communications window or possibly destroyed its watch on board Perseverances, as Perseverance waited a full day listening all the time to see if Ingenuity would wake up and start Communications again .

Fortunately, the small helicopter was fine, reporting no major malfunctions, however, its silence had been extremely worrying. It turned out that the problem was the levels of dust in the air on Mars over time. Ingenuity's solar panels that kept its battery recharged had received less and less sunlight, causing the batteries to drop dangerously low, it had gone into safety mode to avoid losing the heaters that kept it from freezing to death on the cold Martian nights. . Ingenuity was given several days of reduced duty to give its batteries more time to charge up to operational levels, however this came at a cost, it would use its heaters less from now on instead of converting them to its design when temperatures reach -15 degrees Celsius.

Ingenuity would just turn them on and when it's 40 degrees Celsius and the nights on Mars are about to get colder, eventually that cold will result. being too tired perseverance and ingenuity continued but now their objective was in sight the sands of the Ezaro crater floor were behind them they had finally entered the Delta with that a completely new campaign would begin perseverance had done a lot in the first year and Half of his time on Mars he had done science, traveling across dunes and overcoming challenges through careful problem-solving, but whether he had already managed to find life, we will ultimately only know for sure when those samples returned to Earth.

Once that happens, hopefully it will. make clear how influential the crater floor campaign has been, even if it finds nothing that in itself indicates an answer, but it is much more tempting to me to imagine that even now the irrefutable answer to whether life ever flourished on Mars could be in a little while. clear hash safely located inside the case of the perseverance, it could be that in the next decade we will discover that answer, but until then the perseverance will remain true to its namesake and continue with its mission thanks for watching this far I want another Rover story , why don't you take a look?

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