NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover collected a rock sample from the Jezero Crater and named it ‘Comet Geyser’. Why? The core taken by the rover was awash in water for an extended period of time in the distant past, perhaps as part of an ancient Martian beach.
The 24th sample, which was collected on March 11, includes 21 sample tubes filled with rock cores, two filled with regolith (broken rock / dust), and one with Martian atmosphere. The presence of these specific water-deposited minerals is considered promising for preserving a rich record of an ancient habitable environment on Mars.
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To put it simply, this is the kind of rock we had hoped to find when we decided to investigate Jezero Crater. Nearly all the minerals in the rock we just sampled were made in water; on Earth, water-deposited minerals are often good at trapping and preserving ancient organic material and biosignatures. The rock can even tell us about Mars climate conditions that were present when it was formed,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for Perseverance at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
