Perseverance Meets the Megabreccia – NASA Science
Written by Henry Manelski, PH.D. Student at Purdue University
Last week, The Perseverance Rover began a exciting new trip. By driving northwest of the Soroya ridge, perseverance entered an area filled with a diverse range of rocks which, according to the scientific team, could have clues to the first history of March. The land we explore is known as megabreccia: A chaotic mixture of broken rock fragments probably produced during ancient asteroid impacts. Some blocks may come from the Gargantuan Isidis Impact event, which has created a crater 1,200 miles wide (about 1,930 kilometers) just east of Jezero. Megabreccia’s study could help us link Jezero’s geology to the region in the broad sense around the Isidis basin, linking local observations to the world history of March.
The rover is now starting a systematic exploration of these rocks, from Scotiafjellet. If they are really megabreccia, they could contain deep crustal pieces of material, offering a rare overview inside Mars. These rocks are probably prior to the deltaic and volcanic deposits that we explored earlier in Jezero Crater, which in fact that some of the oldest accessible rocks will ever meet. They can therefore reveal to what extent the water was present on the old March – a key question when we continue our search for signs of past life on the red planet. In short, by venturing into this twinned terrain, perseverance gives us a seat at the forefront of the first chapters in the history of Mars.
