This map shows where NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will be dropping 10 samples that a future mission could pick up. Perseverance will retain one set on its body and drop the other set in depots, such as the one planned for Three Forks. The rover team is collecting two core samples from each target rock. This "atmospheric sample" is the result of Perseverance's first-ever sampling try, which failed due to the crumbliness of the target rock.
On board, 15 tubes contain drilled-out cores from intriguing target rocks, two harbor regolith (dirt and gravel) and one is filled with Martian air. To date, Perseverance has collected 18 samples. In addition to its sample-collecting work, the rover is hunting for signs of ancient Mars life in Jezero's rocks. Jezero harbored a big lake and a river delta billions of years ago, which is the main reason the crater was the destination chosen for Perseverance's mission.
(Witness tubes are designed to help mission team members determine which materials in the collected samples, if any, may be contaminants from Earth.) "We not only have igneous and sedimentary rocks that record at least two and possibly four or even more distinct styles of aqueous alteration, but also regolith, atmosphere and a witness tube," she added. The samples headed for the depot "are an incredible set representative of the area explored during the prime mission," Mars Sample Return program principal scientist Meenakshi Wadhwa, of Arizona State University, said in Friday's update.
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