Gamingdeputy reported on March 29 that the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin Mars Exploration Rover is about to carry out its mission to search for life on Mars. Recently, scientists have released a new geological map of its landing area, which will provide guidance for the rover’s selection after landing. The road provides important guidance.
“This geological map is like our treasure hunt guide, telling us where to look for answers,” Peter Fawdon of the Open University said in a news release. “It provides a visual representation of the landing zone based on our current knowledge. The distribution of different rocks. When the rover arrives on Mars, it will use the instruments it carries to verify our existing knowledge.”
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The mission was originally planned to cooperate with Russia, with Russia providing the landing platform. However, due to changes in the situation in Ukraine in 2022, cooperation was forced to be suspended. Currently, the mission's launch time has been postponed to October 2028. Scientists are re-planning the mission, designing and building a new landing platform, and striving to reach Mars in 2030.
Because Mars' current environment is cold, dry, and full of radiation, the chances of microbial survival are slim. However, the mainstream view is that about 3.5 billion years ago, Mars was warm and humid, and may have the conditions to breed life. This is supported by the remains of river beds, floodplains and coasts, as well as the mineral composition and presence of organic molecules in these areas.
If life once existed on Mars, then their biological signatures may be preserved in Martian rocks, waiting to be discovered by the Rosalind Franklin rover. The rover will travel through the Oxia Planum, a vast plain rich in clay minerals. These clay minerals were deposited in ancient times and were formed from liquid water. The rover will routinely drill through these clay layers to obtain samples up to a depth of 2 meters, which will be analyzed by the vehicle's “Pasteur” instrument suite.
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Clay is considered excellent for preserving biological features. The rover will use a variety of tools to study these samples, one of which is the Mars Organic Molecular Analyzer (MOMA). The instrument will test samples for organic carbon-based molecules, such as amino acids, lipids, and possibly even RNA and DNA (or their Martian analogues), in the hope of identifying substances that only living things could leave behind. That's why the rover is named after British chemist Rosalind Franklin, who made key contributions to our understanding of the structure of DNA.
In order for the Rosalind Franklin rover to maximize its goals, scientists need to plan its route on Earth. This new geological map will play an important role. The geological map depicts 15 specific geological units in the Oxia Planum region, including boulder fields, transverse aeolian dunes (TARs), widely spaced fissures, impact craters and their ejecta, honeycombs of polygonal and rectangular trenches, Overburden, different types of bedrock, and layers of sediment dating back nearly 4 billion years. These geological units were formed about 4 billion years ago during the Noachian Period (4.1-3.7 billion years ago), the Hesperian Period (3.7-3 billion years ago) and the Amazonian Period (3 billion years ago to the present). Different colors are used on geological maps to distinguish them.
According to Gamingdeputy, the scale of the map is 1:25000, which means that each centimeter on the map represents 250 meters on Mars. The rover travels an average of 25-50 meters per day, which is equivalent to only a few millimeters on the map.
The geological map was created by 80 trained volunteers who mapped 134 1-square-kilometer areas on the surface of Mars based on data from Europe's ExoMars gas trace exploration orbiter and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. description of geological features.Subsequently, the chief scientists of the rover integrated the information provided by the volunteers and finally drew this article published in“Map Journal”on the geological map.