NASA's Perseverance rover has spent 1.5 years on Mars exploring an ancient lake bed. Scientists say several rock samples collected on Mars have organic molecules associated with life. A follow-up mission will pick up these samples from Perseverance in 2030.
SpaceX provided a ride into space for NASA's DART mission, the first attempt to test out an Earth protection plan from asteroids by crashing a spacecraft into one.
"This mission is not looking for extant life things that are alive today," Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist, said. "Instead, we're looking into the very distant past when Mars climate was very different than it is today, much more conducive to life." Using the rover's instrument called Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals, or SHERLOC, to analyze the area where the rover collected the samples, the team found the highest concentration of organic matter yet during the mission. Organic matter, considered the building blocks of life, can be created through processes that involve life but also other circumstances, like geologic activity, not involving life.
NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said the plan was always to have two methods of getting the samples back to Earth, using Perseverance or another rover for the handoff.
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