In this episode, Perseverance smashes rocks on the surface, reaches the enchanted lake area and
discovers several strange rocks. This video is part of a series,
documenting the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter every 3 months.
It s Sol 532, and the rover has driven back to an interesting place on the delta front,
to get another shot of this amazing formation. You can clearly see
tunnel-like holes going through the rocks. Perseverance has been exploring the delta front,
excitedly going back and forth between different areas of interest. The rover is heading towards an
area known as enchanted lake. The team at NASA has employed the strategy of looking at rocks,
then quickly moving on to gain a greater context of what happened in Jezero crater.
This view from Sol 538 shows long wheel tracks, with the Kodiac butte in the
distance. The rover is covering a lot of ground up and down the delta front.
On Sol 543, the team at NASA orders the rover to churn up the Martian
surface. Perseverance gets busy making zen art on the sand. You
can see that the sand is composed of both larger and finer particles.
The rover trains its laser on some freshly exposed sand. The data here will help the team determine
what makes up the sand near the delta. Perseverance is also looking for frost on the
undisturbed sand. Frost can form on Mars when the ground temperature gets below the point
where water vapour in the air can turn directly into ice. The small holes seen in this image are
where the rover trained its laser. It seems it s still a little too warm for frost.
Meanwhile, our helicopter friend takes to the sky for flight number 31. Ingenuity is slowly
catching up to the rover, wanting to help with scouting ahead.
You can see the delta is starting to come into focus.
Back on the ground, Perseverance finally reaches the enchanted lake area. The rocks
here look very sharp and brittle. The rover really wants to drill here.
On Sol 558, Perseverance attempts to abrade a promising rock.
Unfortunately, the rock is smashed beyond all recognition. The delta is proving incredibly
hard to sample, but the rover must keep trying. The team checks that the rock
abrasion tool is not damaged and proceed with their search for a good rock sample.
There are so many interesting targets in the area. Look at this pile of thin
flaky rocks. How did it get here? The rover investigates an interesting
outcrop that seems to be made up of small irregular blocks.
This is the view from the camera on the end of its arm. Interesting patterns are
observed. Is it possible that water flowed over the surface of this rock,
bringing minerals that were compressed by something that was previously laid on top?
The area is too exciting and Perseverance gears itself up to try and get a core sample. First it
will need to abrade the rock. The rover proceeds carefully and
records the operation. You can see that the rock does sink slightly,
but not enough to be of concern. The operation took around 10 minutes in real time.
Fortunately, the rock withstood the abrasion and turns out to be quite a hard piece of rock. You
can see in this image that the rock abrasion tool has left some markings on the patch.
Excitingly, this means it s time for the rover to get its drill out.
This series of images shows the drilling operation. Again, the rock sank slightly,
but not enough to cause any problems. In the video, you can see a small chip of
rock settle into the abrasion patch. This image shows the flake of rock in the
patch. The material in this area seems to be very brittle.
The rock has cracked, but the sample is retrieved successfully. There is,
however, one small problem. The sample will not seal properly.
The issue may be due to Martian dust interfering with the sealing process.
Perseverance captures a time-lapse of images over 4 Sols showing small dust grains moving
around the sample tube's rim. While the team works on a fix, the rover must press on.
Perseverance finishes up activities at enchanted lake and is on the move once
again. The team wants it to analyse the Martian sand along the way.
Its own wheel tracks provide a great look at what sits just beneath the surface.
The rover must also gather data from undisturbed areas, to compare. You
can see the laser shots in this image. On Sol 606, Perseverance finds itself surrounded
by rocks. These rocks appear to be similar to those formed by volcanic activity.
Look at this rock, it has what appears to be scratch marks .
If you look closely, you can see that this scratch pattern persists throughout the rock, and is
present on other rocks in the area, so it s likely natural, but it does make for a cool photo.
This boulder appears to be broken in half. Did it fall from the top of the
delta? Or was it transported by water? Or, perhaps, was it brought here by a
volcanic eruption in the ancient past? If you look closely here, this may well be the
other half of the boulder. Maybe it rolled down the delta front quite recently.
There are clearly 2 different rock types present here. The darker volcanic rocks,
and the lighter, sharper bedrock material.
On Sol 608, the rover comes across a strange rock that has a line of
extruded material attached to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it seems that this is a
line of small nodules. Nodules like these suggest the presence of water in the ancient past.
As for the 2 circular areas of lighter material, this remains unexplained.
The team at NASA order the rover to abrade a nearby rock to get
a better feel of what happened here. This sequence shows the abrasion. Thankfully,
the rock doesn t budge. The patch reveals a network of thin,
white veins. It looks like minerals were transported into the area by water.
It s also possible that the veins contain fluid inclusions , or trapped droplets of ancient water,
but we ll need to get a sample back to Earth to look for that.
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