There ’s nothing more frustrating than having to blame up someone else ’s discarded shabu , so you could suppose theNatural History Museumin London ’s fury at having to house a meteorite unfeelingly dump on Earth by Mars for the past 20 years . To learn the Red Planet a lesson , and in an unprecedented intergalactic game of pass off the parcel , the cosmic careen will be returned to Mars as part of the 2020 wanderer mission . The meteorite will be used to calibrate an instrument on the rover ’s arm after which it will continue on its home sod .
This is the first time in story a museum has returned a meteorite sample distribution to its stage of origin for the sake of science , and , appropriately entitle the Mars Sample Return , the mission is the most challenging drive since Apollo in terms of planetary exploration . The Mars 2020 wanderer , named Perseverance , will launch on July 30 , and as well as returning the meteorite the campaign intend to choose and retain samples of Martian sway to bring back to Earth on a succeeding mission . The rock swapping just never end .
The meteorite , look up to as Sayh al Uhamiyr 008 or SaU 008 , was call back in Oman in 1999 and is needed to calibrate the Mars rover ’s SHERLOC ( scan Habitable environment with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals ) instrument so that it can efficaciously identify and collect rock candy and regolith samples for a possible return to Earth . Once Perseverance has landed at Mars ’ Jezero Crater in February 2021 , the meteorite will be used as a testing material by SHERLOC to decrypt the authorship of rock samples and evaluate if they are worthy of a place on the return journey .
“ Every class , we supply hundreds of meteorite specimens to scientists all over the Earth to analyze , ” say Professor Caroline Smith , headway of Earth Sciences Collections at the Museum , principal curator of Meteorites , and member of the Mars 2020 Science Team , in a command . “ But this is a first for us : sending one of our samples more or less 100 million km away back home , to further our knowledge of Mars . ”
To be effective as a calibration fabric , the meteorite ask to best reflect the belongings of sample the rover might come across and so SaU 008 was chosen as it ’s made up of basalt , a material ground all over Mars . accord to Professor Smith , SaU 008 was probably blasted off of the Red Planet between 600,000 and 700,000 years ago , so it will be a long - awaited reunification .
“ The part that we are transport was specifically choose because it is the right stuff in terms of chemical science , but also it is a very knotty rock , ” Professor Smith carry on . “ Some of the Martian meteorite we have are very fragile . This meteorite is as tough as previous boots . In gain , studying this sample over the course of the mission will help us to see the chemical interactions between the Martian aerofoil , and its atmosphere . ”
As well as hunt for sampling to convey back to Earth , Perseverance will be searching for sign of past life . The Jezero Crater has been take as the landing place site as it ’s believed to have been the most potentially habitable environment in the past . Perseverance will also be carting around some tech to see if oxygen can be generated from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere , painting a picture of its suitability for human life in the time to come .
