With its camera made in Toulouse, the Rover “Perseverance” spots a vast lake on Mars
Through David Saint Sernin
Published on
Positioned on March since february 2021, the rover of the Nasa, has just confirmed the presence of a ancient lake on the red planet we learned Thursday, October 7, 2021.
It is thanks to an instrument partly made in Toulouse by the Irap (Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology) teams, the famous “SuperCam” nestled at the top of the rover and which allows to analyze the Martian soils, that the trace of the old lake was found.
100 meter deep lake
The observations of the rover, published Thursday in the journal “Science”, allow to say that there was a lake 35 kilometers in diameter and about 100 meters deep at its center, fed by a river via a delta, a did exist on the red planet 3.6 billion years ago.
MARCH: the Franco-American Supercam instrument from Perseverance delivers its first results on Marshttps://t.co/I2XDBe6ERF Images stated that the rover’s landing crater once hosted a lake fed by a river via a delta@CNRS @INSU_CNRS @INP_CNRS pic.twitter.com/gY8ngDxlCU
– Alain Schuhl (@AlainSchuhl) October 8, 2021
?? @NASAPersevere delivers its first scientific results: the Jezero crater sheltered a lake, fed by a river via a delta, 3.6 billion years ago 🌊
These observations were obtained using the instrument #SuperCam ??# March2020https://t.co/rGkTDcCybq– CNES (@CNES) October 8, 2021
Liquid water
The images of the Toulouse and American camera of the robot, SuperCam, therefore confirmed it: as on Earth, liquid water therefore flowed on Mars.
The Rover will continue to collect fragments of Mars.
Life on Mars?
All these samples should be sent to Earth by 2030 during a perilous and unprecedented “Mars Sample Return” mission. It would be the first time in history that humans have brought extraterrestrial matter back to Earth.
With the ultimate question: was there life on the Red Planet?
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