UI researcher makes use of superior Mars rover ‘SuperCam’ to seek for life indicators

A planetary geologist on the University of Iowa is a part of an elite NASA crew pouring over knowledge being relayed from the Perseverance Mars Rover, which has found a few of the clearest indicators but of historical life on the Red Planet.

Valerie Payré, a professor within the UI’s School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability, is working with what’s known as the rover’s SuperCam, which makes use of a laser and spectrometers to find out the origin of rocks on the Martian floor.

“Every day, I receive some images and analysis from the Perseverance rover that is looking at the chemistry and makeup of rocks around the rover,” Payré says. “So every day we are a team, looking at the measurements and the images, trying to understand what is going on around the rover and understanding the geology of the surroundings.”

The SuperCam has refined devices which NASA says can establish the chemical and mineral make-up of Martian samples as small as a pencil level, from a distance of greater than 20 ft. The rover is exploring Jezero Crater, which was as soon as a lake, looking for an indication of life — and she or he says it might’ve discovered one.

“The rover took a picture of the surroundings and it looked at this really interesting rock that had those rounded features on it,” Payré says. “That was really interesting because when we see that on Earth, usually those rounded features are byproducts of life. So right away, we wanted to see what those were made of, and if it was the same thing as what we’re seeing on Earth.”

Similar rounded rocks on Earth can point out byproducts of microbial life, like what will be present in sedimentary deposits in lakes, however the compounds may also be fashioned in different ways in which -don’t- embody a life kind.

“So we are on the fence some here, and to understand whether this rock is related to life, we need to do more analysis, but we don’t have the instrumentation on board the rover for that,” Payré says. “We would love to have that rock on Earth and look at more chemistry in there to see if indeed those features are related to life or not.”

Payré says day-after-day holds new alternatives, and so they’re by no means positive when the following picture could comprise parts of a billion-year-old biosignature.

“This is a very cool discovery and exciting for us, but also for the public, because those could be related to life,” Payré says, “and that would mean maybe we’re not alone in the universe.”