Moments after the Perseverance rover safely arrived on Mars, Brock University earth sciences professor Mariek Schmidt immediately started looking for sites that could yield clues that the red planet once supported life.
The rover landed in Jezero Crater shortly before 4 p.m., Thursday, touching down south east of a river delta that once flowed into an ancient lake billions of years ago, leaving behind deposits that are likely still there today.
Although that ancient river delta is about two kilometres away from the landing site, Schmidt — a volcanologist and igneous petrologist — said she has already noticed nearby rocks types “that are going to be interesting.”
“There are going to be carbonates, I think, pretty close by,” she said, referring to minerals that are typical formed in wet environments.
Schmidt, one of a team of international scientists working with NASA on the Perseverance mission, however, said it’s still too early to be certain.
“We don’t know what they’re made of yet,” she said. “We have just seen images from around the rover body.”
Schmidt said scientists are awaiting high-resolution panoramic images from a mast-mounted camera array for a better view of the rover’s immediate surroundings. Those images should be released to the public within a week, she added.
She has also had access to photographs and videos that have yet to be publicly released, showing the daring manoeuvre that safely lowered the rover to the planet’s surface.
“They’re amazing,” she said, referring to the images that showed a perfectly executed landing.
“It was flawless,” Schmidt said. “They couldn’t have imagined it going any better.”
After a more than 400 million km journey for the rover, that perfect landing added to the excitement for Schmidt and her family.
The St. Catharines resident, who has participated in two previous NASA rover missions, said she was jumping up and down and cheering with her giggling three-year-old son, watching as the rover landed.
Schmidt — one of several Canadian scientists involved in the mission that also includes Richard Leveille at McGill University and Chris Herd from the University of Alberta — said she is now looking forward to working with scientists from around the word to guide the rover as its search for signs of ancient life begins.
“There has been some discussion already about what our targets will look like, what the traverse is going to be like. We have some idea. Eventually it’s going to go around and climb up on the delta,” she said, adding its route to get to that destination has yet to be finalized.
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While Schmidt will have a say in guiding the rover, she said she is one many scientists sharing their insight into the mission.
“If there’s something that is particularly interesting or to answer a question that I really want to know, I will speak up and hopefully contribute my expertise.”
