NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover begins new search for life in Red Planet's 'crocodile' region
To put it in a way that somewhat understates how big it is, space is rather large, and with that in mind, there's got to be life out there somewhere, right?
But, instead of simply flying around asking for directions to ET's house, NASA are looking a little closer to home for signs of life in our very own solar system's red planet, Mars.
NASA's Perseverance rover has made its way to a new area of Mars known as Krokodillen, which is Norwegian for crocodile.
Krokodillen is believed to be home to some of the planet's oldest and most interesting rocks. The area of exploration is around 73 acres and borders Jezero Crater, where the rover first landed back in 2021.
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Earlier investigations into the region have shown potential signs of clay, which in turn would hint at the presence of water at some point.
If clay and other similar materials are identified in the area, it could suggest that the planet was previously habitable, and could be the first signs of potential life at some point in the planet's history.
It's believed that the Krokodillen region is home to some of the oldest rocks on Mars, which predate when the Jezero Crater was created.
Ken Farley, deputy project scientist for Perseverance from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said: "If we find a potential biosignature here, it would most likely be from an entirely different and much earlier epoch of Mars evolution than the one we found last year in the crater with 'Cheyava Falls'."
While it might be exciting that NASA's Perseverance rover could collect samples which might unlock the secrets of Mars' history, those samples will need to be returned to Earth so they can be sampled at labs across the globe.
Previously, the rover would collect and then seal samples. However, since the rover is now running low on empty sample tubes, the team has decided to take on a new approach. Instead, the rover will now collect a sample, without sealing the tube, and then if it finds anything more exciting, it can dump the previous sample in favour of the new one.
As it stands, the rover currently only has seven of its 38 sample tubes left, and it's not yet known when it will be returning to Earth so that the samples can be tested.
Katie Stack Morgan of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained: "We have been exploring Mars for over four years, and every single filled sample tube we have on board has its own unique and compelling story to tell."
Kegan Marquez