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    Perseverance Rover tagged posts

    Mars Perseverance rover data suggests presence of past microbial life

    September 16, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Researchers uncover potential biosignatures on Mars
    Perseverance rover reached the Bright Angel site on Mars by navigating through a dune field, bypassing large boulders. The rover is now investigating this area’s unique geological features to understand Mars’ past environmental conditions and support future human exploration. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    A new study co-authored by Texas A&M University geologist Dr. Michael Tice has revealed potential chemical signatures of ancient Martian microbial life in rocks examined by NASA’s Perseverance rover.

    The findings, published by a large international team of scientists, focus on a region of Jezero Crater known as the Bright Angel formation—a name chosen from locations in Grand Canyon National Park because of the light-colored Martian rocks...

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    How to make metals from Martian dirt

    August 28, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Swinburne and CSIRO researchers have successfully made iron under Mars-like conditions, opening to door to off-world metal production.

    The idea of building settlements on Mars is a popular goal of billionaires, space agencies and interplanetary enthusiasts.

    But construction demands materials, and we can’t ship it all from Earth: it cost US$243 million just to send NASA’s one ton Perseverance Rover to the Red Planet.

    Unless we’re building a settlement for ants, we’ll need much, much more stuff. So how do we get it there?

    CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow and Swinburne alum Dr. Deddy Nababan has been pondering this question for years. His answer lies in the Martian dirt, known as regolith.

    “Sending metals to Mars from Earth might be feasible, but it’s not economical...

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    Perseverance rover captures Mars vista as clear as day

    August 8, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Captured at a location called “Falbreen,” this enhanced-color mosaic features deceptively blue skies and the 43rd rock abrasion (the white patch at center-left) of the NASA Perseverance rover’s mission at Mars. The 96 images stitched together to create this 360-degree view were acquired May 26, 2025.

    The imaging team of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has taken advantage of clear skies on the red planet to capture one of the sharpest panoramas of its mission so far. Visible in the mosaic, which was stitched together from 96 images taken at a location the science team calls “Falbreen,” are a rock that appears to lie on top of a sand ripple, a boundary line between two geologic units, and hills as distant as 40 miles (65 kilometers) away...

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    NASA’s Mars Sample Return Mission is in trouble—but it’s a Vital Step to Sending Humans to the Red Planet

    May 1, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    NASA's Mars Sample Return mission is in trouble—but it's a vital step to sending humans to the red planet
    Perseverance has been collecting cores from scientifically interesting rocks for their eventual return to Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

    NASA recently asked the scientific community to help come up with innovative ideas for ways to carry out its Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. This was in response to a report by an independent board that deemed that its US$11 billion (£8.7 billion) price tag was too expensive and its 2040 timeline too far in the future.

    In brief, the ambitious plan was to collect rock samples cached inside containers by NASA’s Perseverance rover and deliver them to laboratories on Earth. Perseverance has been exploring Mars’ Jezero Crater, thought to have once hosted an ancient lake, since 2021...

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