[표지로 읽는 과학] The identity of rocks collected from Mars: Dong-A Science

This week, Science covered the surface of Mars photographed by NASA’s Mars rover ‘Perseverance’, which has been exploring since February last year. The wheel marks left by the rover moving on the red Martian soil over the hole are clear.

The three holes drilled in a row are traces of Perseverance’s extraction of rocks. In Science this week, a paper analyzing the results of Perseverance’s exploration in the crater was published. With a diameter of 45 km, the crater is an area where water is estimated to have flowed 3.5 billion years ago. For example, it is considered an area with a high probability of finding traces of life because microorganisms exist on Earth in an environment similar to a crater.

A team of researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) discovered that it is olivine by analyzing the structure of the rock taken from the crater as an example through X-ray fluorescence measurement. This means that the underground magma went through several stages of cooling to form rock layers. The research team also revealed that the rock had traces of deformation by reacting with water.

Meanwhile, on the same day, a research team from the Department of Geology and Planetary Sciences at Caltech announced that the bottom of the crater is composed of two layers, ‘Maaz’ and ‘Theta’ as an example. The Maaz Formation forms most of the crater floor and has various structures, such as rocky protrusions or ridges several meters high. On the other hand, the theta layer is a structure in which layers with a height of several tens of centimeters are stacked on top of each other. The research team analyzed that the magnesium carbonate border of the theta layer was created by the interaction of carbon dioxide with water.

Two rock samples collected from the crater as an example by Perseverance were stored in sample tubes for transport to Earth. NASA plans to send a probe in early 2030 to bring rock samples to Earth for research.