The Perseverance rover on Mars is set to begin its newest challenge: a slog up the rim of the Jezero Crater that will take months to complete. The rover will face steep slopes and difficult terrain, testing its wheels and suspension system, but its efforts should help to uncover rocks from the most ancient part of the Mars crust.
Since the rover landed in the Jezero Crater in 2021, it has been exploring the floor of the crater and the site of an ancient river delta. This area was chosen because it was once home to an ancient lake, so the rock cores that the rover has collected will help to uncover information about the history of water on Mars — which is vital to determine if the planet could ever have been habitable.
“Among these rock cores are likely the oldest materials sampled from any known environment that was potentially habitable,” said Perseverance scientist Tanja Bosak of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a statement. “When we bring them back to Earth, they can tell us so much about when, why, and for how long Mars contained liquid water and whether some organic, prebiotic, and potentially even biological evolution may have taken place on that planet.”
Now, the rover will start heading up to the crater’s rim, taking in a new area of the martian landscape. “Our samples are already an incredibly scientifically compelling collection, but the crater rim promises to provide even more samples that will have significant implications for our understanding of martian geologic history,” said fellow scientist Eleni Ravanis of the University of Hawaii. “This is because we expect to investigate rocks from the most ancient crust of Mars. These rocks formed from a wealth of different processes, and some represent potentially habitable ancient environments that have never been examined up close before.”
To reach the crater’s rim, Perseverance will have to journey up slopes of up to 23 degrees and gain a total elevation of around 1,000 feet (300 meters). The rover will begin its climb this week, marking the fifth phase of its mission so far.
“Perseverance has completed four science campaigns, collected 22 rock cores, and traveled over 18 unpaved miles,” said Perseverance project manager Art Thompson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “As we start the Crater Rim Campaign, our rover is in excellent condition, and the team is raring to see what’s on the roof of this place.”
