Aussies taste scientific life on Mars

Australian scientists will play an integral role in the ‘groundbreaking’ mission to discover ancient life on Mars, after NASA’s Perseverance Rover landed on the Red Planet on Friday.

The first pictures of Mars from the Perseverance rover. Picture: NASA / Twitter

Australian scientists will play an integral role in the “groundbreaking” mission to discover ancient life on Mars, after NASA’s Perseverance Rover landed on the Red Planet on Friday.

The Queensland University of Technology has built software for NASA to analyse the data returned by the rover, as it roams the 45km-wide Jezero Crater, which billions of years ago was home to a river delta and lake.

QUT Professor David Flannery, working on the mission for the better part of a decade as a Long-Term Planner, said it was an “amazing opportunity” for Australians to have a role in the research. Professor Flannery said while scientists currently have limited understanding of Mars “early on”, they think it was more inhabitable, had a much denser atmosphere and significant amounts of water.

“Something happened to Mars in the intervening billions of years,” he said. “We hope by investigating the lake, we’ll be able to understand the provisions at the time.”

The rover will look for signs of ancient microbial life and collect ancient rock samples to be sent back to Earth for further analysis.

QUT researchers, including PhD students, are already drawing comparisons between ancient rocks in Western Australia and those they believe the rover will find on Mars, to help understand how to best analyse the celestial samples. They will also work with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to help guide the rover on its astrobiological task.

“The opportunity for QUT researchers and students to take part in this mission is very rare, particularly in Australia,” Professor Flannery said.

“By participating in missions like these we are developing experience and capabilities to help us contribute effectively to flagship discoveries.”

Perseverance landed on Mars early Friday after completing its 470-million-km journey in just over 200 days. The nailbiting, autonomous landing procedure took seven minutes. “Touchdown confirmed,” said operations lead Swati Mohan, causing the team at NASA mission control in California to jump to their feet and cheer.