Perseverance rover might maintain secrets and techniques to newly found Mars volcano

A volcano appears to have been recognized close to the rim of Jezero crater on Mars, which is being explored by NASA’s Perseverance rover. The automobile might have already sampled materials spewed out by historical eruptions.

Perseverance landed in Jezero crater in 2021 and has progressively made its method to the western rim, driving up a dried-up river, which is believed to have flowed about 3 to 4 billion years in the past.

The rover has been gathering samples that have been meant to be returned to Earth as a part of the Mars Pattern Return mission within the 2030s, though that’s now threatened by the Trump administration’s proposed sweeping cuts at NASA.

Among the materials within the samples was thought to have been volcanic, together with indicators of lava flows. Now, James Wray on the Georgia Institute of Expertise in Atlanta and his colleagues have discovered a doable supply – a dormant volcano on the south-eastern rim of Jezero named Jezero Mons.

Excessive-resolution imagery from Mars orbiters have revealed fine-grained materials on the mountain, in line with ash from a volcano. The scale and form of Jezero Mons – 21 kilometres vast and two kilometres tall – additionally matches related volcanoes on Earth.

“An igneous volcano interpretation appears most in line with the observations,” says Wray, one fuelled by magma from beneath the floor. “It’s the strongest case we are able to make with out truly strolling throughout it.”

By counting craters close to the volcano, Wray and his workforce estimate that Jezero Mons might have final erupted as lately as 1 billion years in the past, probably flinging ash, lava and rocks into Jezero crater, even so far as Perseverance’s touchdown website.

Meaning the rover might need collected samples from the volcano. In that case, and in the event that they could possibly be returned to Earth, scientists would be capable to exactly date the exercise of a volcano on one other planet for the primary time.

“You’d truly know when that volcano was lively, which might be very cool,” says Briony Horgan at Purdue College in Indiana, who’s a part of the rover’s science workforce. This might give us essential info on “how the inside of the planet was evolving over time”, she says.

Even higher, says Wray, can be driving Perseverance to the volcano itself, though that’s unlikely to occur. “They’re driving in the wrong way, as a result of there’s actually fascinating historical rocks outdoors the crater to the west,” he says. “I don’t blame them.”