even the most die-hard nasa stand has to
admit the martian surface is a pretty
dry subject but what if we told you
nasa's new perseverance rover has
already made startling discoveries
involving a harbour seal the wright
brothers airplane and the merits of
rigorous personal hygiene
join us today as we prove how much this
dead planet rocks
and learn what has been found on mars so
far nasa's mars 2020 mission is all
about
seeking traces of the microbial life
scientists think might have existed some
three billion years ago
when conditions on mars were probably
very similar to those on earth
if successful technical insights gained
on this mission will also help pave the
way for future manned adventures to the
red planet
at the time of writing the rover has
been on the surface for less than 100
days but plenty has been discovered
nevertheless for one vital proof of
concept data was collected from the very
landing process itself
the mission's all-new terrain relative
navigation used innovative onboard
mapping
cross-referencing input from the
crafts-on-board cameras to help pinpoint
the perseverance landing zone to within
a few meters
no small feat when even a minor
overshoot would have landed the rover in
trouble
weeks of hard driving from where it
needs to be and this data will prove
invaluable to future sorties
three types of sensors thermocouples
heat flux sensors and pressure
transducers
were deployed during entry and landing
collecting data on the temperatures and
outside pressure before
and after that iconic parachute was
deployed one potentially key discovery
was that every last thermocouple
survived the landing intact
suggesting heat shield damage was
minimal and as thermocouples are by no
means mission critical
it follows that future landers could
maybe get by with thinner heat shields
saving all important weight safely
deposited on the martian surface
perseverance has since been doing
exactly what we'd all be doing in its
position blasting rocks with its awesome
space laser you'll have seen in those
photos sent back from the red planet
that the rover's new jezero crater home
is studded with light-coloured rocks
peering out from a landscape of russet
coloured soil well some of those rocks
have been singled out for special
attention
by arguably the coolest man-made device
ever sent into space
the perseverance supercam the supercam
rocks up to its target stone and
fires a tiny pinpoint laser accurate up
to seven meters away when that powerful
beam strikes the rock
it sends up a brief superheated cloud of
plasma comprising free-floating ions and
electrons
perseverance's on-board spectrograph
reads the short plasma signature
and can identify the chemical
composition of the rock two particular
rocks scientists have identified as
worthy of the supercam treatment have
been nicknamed mars and yigo
they're both words from the navajo
dialect by the way coined by aaron
yazzie a nasa engineer and proud navajo
nation member
anyway it turns out that mars which
means mars and yigo meaning diligent
are basalt-like in composition so
they're igneous as in they've come from
a volcano
but crucially it seems they were molded
into their present shape amid some long
gone watery environment
proof if it were needed that mars wasn't
always such a dry topic
another noteworthy rock perseverance has
poured over is nicknamed the harbour
seal dark and smooth
nasa believes it was sculpted into a
sinuous likeness of that playful marine
carnivore by the natural erosion of
powerful northwesterly winds this
finding supports existing weather
modelling of the martian atmosphere
so counts as a valid and useful data
point for researchers as well as being
darn cute
super cam's super duper laser doesn't
only furnish perseverance with visual
clues for the mineral composition of
rocks
oh no the very sound of its zapping
sci-fi laser
also offers sonic clues to the makeup of
stones indeed one of the most
groundbreaking
aspects of this mission so far is that
it's enabled anybody back home on earth
to listen in on the martian landscape
thanks to perseverance's on-board
battery of microphones
in addition to the pew pew of that laser
an audio track also dropped on nasa's
soundcloud
of the rover's heavy metal wheels
clanging and banging across the hard
rocking martian terrain not to mention
the eerie ambient susperation of the
extraterrestrial winds
available to anybody who wants to hear
it online magic really
even more magical perseverance
perseverance's marvellous moxie unit has
performed nothing short of alchemy
transforming base co2 into life-giving
oxygen moxie which stands for mars
oxygen in-situ resource utilization
experiment since you ask
is a gold-plated gizmo roughly the size
of a car battery it works by diffusing
atmospheric co2 through a non-porous
disc of atria stabilized zirconia
or ysz sandwiched between two porous
electrodes
and on april 20th it produced a modest
but nonetheless historic
5 grams of oxygen that works out at
around 10 minutes worth of breathable
air
moxie isn't just the first instrument to
produce oxygen on another world
paving the way for humanity to literally
colonize the universe
it's also the very first device of its
kind to help future missions
live off the land harnessing elements of
another world's environment for fuel
this is known by fancy engineering types
as in-situ resource utilization
that basically means using local co2 to
make oxygen
to then make rocket propellant which is
a much bigger job than plain old
breathable air in order to create enough
fuel to launch
say four astronauts off the martian
surface a future mission would require
approximately fifteen thousand pounds or
seven metric tons
of rocket fuel and 25 metric tons of
oxygen
that's obviously way too much to carry
from earth by contrast
those four astronauts would only need
around one metric ton
between them for breathing and moxie has
proved that can certainly be done by a
larger descendant unit anyway a
breathtaking historic first
of course the most eye-catching wheeze
on this mission so far has been the
successful deployment of nasa's 80
million dollar
ingenuity helicopter affectionately
named ginny if you think that's cute
wait till you learn perseverance is
nicknamed percy
this diminutive chopper only last month
cemented its place in the annals of
science
by performing the first powered flight
on another world
and the very fact it survived the trip
at all is a miracle if ingenuity would
have crashed after the very first flight
we would still have met a couple of huge
milestones one nasa technician told fans
on reddit
surviving launch charging while on route
surviving the entry descent
and landing also deploying from the
rover and surviving the cold martian
knight
these are no small tasks certainly
making an airworthy vehicle that's dinky
enough to be stowed on an interplanetary
rover is an amazing achievement
and paves the way for future missions
exploring areas unsuitable for rovers as
we speak
engineers are greedily collecting data
from this one-of-a-kind
thin aircopter to be used in the design
of smart microdrones or
drones that fly at high altitude for
applications here on earth
one particularly arresting scientific
observation concerned the solar panels
mounted near ginny's rotor blades
engineers spent a long time figuring if
there was some way of mitigating the
inevitable coating of mars dust the
panels would attract
and lose power in doing so various
solutions like mini windscreen wipers
were pitched and rejected on the basis
they'd add too much complexity
and weight but when those dual rotors
started spinning technicians noticed
ginny's solar output actually
increased by a couple of percentage
points engineers have speculated this is
because airflow from the blades
self-cleaned ginny's dusty solar panels
hygiene matters even on mars
ginny is also carrying a very special
payload a postage stamp sized square of
fabric
that was once part of the wright
brothers historic 1903 flying plane
was carefully attached to the craft a
tribute to the real aviation ogs
it's still up there now before we get
carried away with how adorable that is
mimi nasa's ingenuity program manager
had this to say
we've been thinking so long about having
our wright brothers moment she said
modestly we will take a moment
to celebrate our success and then take a
cue from orville and wilbur regarding
what to do next so what did the wright
brothers do next history shows they got
back to work learning as much as they
could about their new aircraft onwards
and upwards then what do you think are
these breakthroughs worth the insane
budget or will we only be satisfied when
ginny sends back a selfie with a little
green man
let us know in the comments and don't
forget to hit subscribe for more
high-flying tech content
you