NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover makes it to ancient river delta

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has arrived at the doorstep of Jezero Crater's ancient river delta, kicking off its second science campaign more than a month earlier than planned.

Dubbed “Three Forks” the location serves as the staging area for the rover's second Red Planet expedition - called the Delta Front Campaign.

The delta is a massive fan-shaped collection of rocks and sediment at the western edge of Jezero Crater. All the fine-grained sediment deposited at its base long ago is the mission's best bet for finding the preserved remnants of ancient microbial life on the Martian surface.

"The delta at Jezero Crater promises to be a veritable geologic feast and one of the best locations on Mars to look for signs of past microscopic life. The answers are out there – and Team Perseverance is ready to find them," said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

The Perseverance Mars rover is expected to collect around eight samples over about half an Earth year during the Delta Front Campaign. Thereafter, the rover will ascend the delta again to begin the “Delta Top Campaign,” which will last about half an Earth year as well.

During its first science campaign, Perseverance collected eight rock-core samples and also completed a record-breaking, 31-Martian-day, or sol, dash across about 3 miles (5 kilometres) of Mars.

"We will look for signs of ancient life in the rocks at the base of the delta, rocks that we think were once mud on the bottom of Lake Jezero. Higher up the delta, we can look at sand and rock fragments that came from upstream, perhaps from miles away," said Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena.

Behold the “bacon strip.” Now that I’ve made it to the delta, I’m getting a closer look at this section of light-colored rock my team’s been eyeing. Could it be mudstone from the ancient lake? One of many things to check out in my new science campaign: https://t.co/uSbzO0bYRC pic.twitter.com/jBl0PSW1vq

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) April 19, 2022

Launched in 2020, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. The mission's key goal is to look for signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for a possible return to Earth.