Washington, May 17 (Agency) The NASA’s Perseverance rover would on Tuesday begin the climb to an ancient delta feature in the crater where it landed in Mars. According to BBC, the six-wheeled robot will roll uphill, stopping every so often to examine rocks that look to have the best chance of retaining evidence of past life on the planet. While climbing down, the rover will collect some of these rocks and place the samples at the base of the delta to be retrieved by later missions. Deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan said, “The delta in Jezero Crater is the main astrobiology target of Perseverance.
“These are the rocks that we think likely have the highest potential for containing signs of ancient life and can also tell us about the climate of Mars and how this has evolved over time. The Perseverance rover had made its landing in the middle of Mars’ 45km-wide Jezero Crater on February 18 in 2021. The main job of the rover is to seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth, NASA said.