Collection and In Situ Analyses of Regolith Samples by the Mars 2020 Rover: Implications for Their Formation and Alteration History

Creators: Hausrath, E. M.¹; Sullivan, R.²; Goreva, Y.³; Zorzano, M. P.⁴; Vaughan, A.⁵; Cousin, A.⁶; Siljeström, S.⁷; Sharma, S.³; Shumway, A. O.⁸; Kizovski, T.⁹; VanBommel, S. J.¹⁰; Tice, M.¹¹; Knight, A.¹⁰; Martinez, G.^{4, 12}; Vicente‐Retortillo, A.⁴; Mandon, L.¹³; Adcock, C. T.¹; Madariaga, J. M.¹⁴; Población, I.¹⁴; Johnson, J. R.¹⁵; Lasue, J.⁶; Gasnault, O.⁶; Randazzo, N.¹⁶; Cardarelli, E. L.^{3, 17}; Kronyak, R.³; Bechtold, A.¹⁸; Paar, G.¹⁹; Udry, A.¹; Forni, O.⁶; Bedford, C. C.²⁰; Carman, N. A.¹; Bell, J. F.²¹; Benison, K.²²; Bosak, T.²³; Brown, A.²⁴; Broz, A.¹⁹; Calef, F.³; Clark, B. C.²⁵; Cloutis, E.²⁶; Czaja, A. D.²⁷; Fornaro, T.²⁸; Fouchet, T.²⁹; Golombek, M.³; Gómez, F.⁴; Herd, C. D. K.¹⁶; Herkenhoff, K.; Jakubek, R. S.³⁰; Jandura, L.³; Martinez‐Frias, J.³¹; Mayhew, L. E.³²; Meslin, P.‐Y.⁶; Newman, C. E.³³; Núñez, J. I.¹⁵; Poulet, F.³⁴; Royer, C.²⁰; Russell, P.¹⁷; Sephton, M. A.³⁵; Sharma, S. K.³⁶; Shuster, D.³⁷; Simon, J. I.³⁰; Tirona, I.³; Wiens, R. C.²⁰; Weiss, B. P.²³; Williams, A. J.³⁸; Williford, K.³⁹; Wolf, Z. U.^{40, 41}; Regolith Working Group

1. University of Nevada, Las Vegas
2. Cornell University
3. Jet Propulsion Lab
4. Centro de Astrobiología
5. Apogee Engineering, LLC, Flagstaff, AZ, USA
6. Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology
7. RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
8. University of Washington
9. Brock University
10. Washington University in St. Louis
11. Texas A&M University
12. Lunar and Planetary Institute
13. California Institute of Technology
14. University of the Basque Country
15. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
16. University of Alberta
17. University of California, Los Angeles
18. University of Vienna
19. Joanneum Research
20. Purdue University West Lafayette
21. Arizona State University
22. West Virginia University
23. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
24. Plancius Research, Severna Park, MD, USA
25. Space Science Institute
26. University of Winnipeg
27. University of Cincinnati
28. INAF—Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri, Firenze, Italy
29. Laboratory of Space Studies and Instrumentation in Astrophysics
30. Johnson Space Center
31. Instituto de Geociencias
32. University of Colorado Boulder
33. Aeolis Research (United States)
34. Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale
35. Imperial College London
36. University of Hawaii at Manoa
37. University of California, Berkeley
38. University of Florida
39. Blue Marble Space Institute of Science
40. Los Alamos National Laboratory
41. For Members See Appendix A

Abstract

The Perseverance rover has sampled mm-size lithic fragments containing olivine likely from at least two source regions from the surface of an inactive megaripple surface, and fine-grained material from the surface and to a depth of ∼4–6 cm. Some of the mm-size grains lack a coherent diffraction pattern measured by PIXL, consistent with the presence of poorly ordered secondary phases that have been altered. Analysis of these materials on Earth will allow examination of materials that have experienced aqueous, potentially habitable environments that could contain biosignatures. Fluorescence of three different patterns was detected, consistent with inorganic emissions from silica defects or rare earth elements in certain mineral phases, although organic origin cannot be excluded. Analysis of Autofocus Context Imager and Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering images of the subsurface material and MEDA thermal inertia measurements indicate average grain sizes of ∼125 and ∼150 μm, respectively, for the bulk material within the megaripple. The fine-grained material in the sampling location indicates chemical compositions similar to previously proposed global components as well as airfall dust. In situ and associated atmospheric measurements provide evidence of recent processes likely including water vapor in soil crust formation. The sampled material will therefore help elucidate the formation of Martian soils; current surface-atmosphere interactions; the composition, shape, and size distribution of dust grains valuable for studies of past and present Martian climate and for assessing potential health and other risks to human missions; and ancient, aqueously altered environments that could have been habitable, and, if Mars contained life, possibly contain biosignatures.

Copyright and License

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Acknowledgement

E. M. Hausrath, C. T. Adcock, and N. A. Carman acknowledge funding from NASA RSS PS Grant 80NSSC20K0239, R. Sullivan from Mars 2020 Phase E funding for Mastcam-Z and MEDA, M.-P. Zorzano was supported by Grant PID2022-140180OB-C21 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, S. Siljeström was supported by the Swedish National Space Agency (contracts 2021-00092 and 137/19), S. Sharma was supported by M2020 Phase E funding for SHERLOC and her research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA (80NM0018D0004). S. J. VanBommel and A. Knight acknowledge funding from M2020 Participating Scientist Grant 80NSSC21K0328, G. Martinez acknowledges JPL funding from USRA Contract Number 1638782, A. Vicente-Retortillo is funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, UE. L. Mandon is funded by the Texaco Postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the division of Geological and Planetary Sciences of Caltech, J. M. Madariaga and I. Poblacion acknowledge funding from the Spanish Agency for Research, Contract PID2022-142750OB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, J. R. Johnson acknowledges funding from JPL subcontract 1532432, ASU subcontract 15–707 (1511125), J. Lasue acknowledges CNES funding (French Space Agency), E. Cardarelli acknowledges funding from M2020 Phase E funding for SHERLOC, A. Udry acknowledges funding from NASA Mars 2020 Participating Scientist program 80NSSC21K0330, R. Wiens, and C.C. Bedford acknowledge funding from NASA Mars 2020 SuperCam contract NNH13ZDA018O, K. Benison acknowledges funding from NASA M2020 Returned Sample Scientist Participating Scientist Grant 80NSSC20K0235, T. Bosak acknowledges funding from M2020 Returned Sample Scientist Participating Scientist Grant 80NSSC20K0234, A. Czaja was supported by the Mars 2020 Returned Sample Science Participating Scientist Program (NASA award number 80NSSC20K0237), B. Weiss thanks the Mars 2020 Participating Scientist program (Grant 80NSSC20K0238) for funding, B. C. Clark and A. O. Shumway acknowledge funding from M2020 Phase E funding for PIXL, C. D. K. Herd acknowledges funding from M2020 Returned Sample Scientist Participating Scientist Grant CSA20EXPMARS, K.E. Herkenhoff acknowledges funding from M2020 Phase E funding for Mastcam-Z, R. S. Jakubek acknowledges funding from Advanced Curation, NASA Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office, Johnson Space Center, L. Jandura acknowledges funding from M2020 Phase E funding for Strategic Sampling, J. Martinez-Frias acknowledges funding from the Spanish Agency for Research, Contract PID2022-142750OB-I00, L. E. Mayhew acknowledges funding from the M2020 Return Sample Science Participating Scientist Grant 80NSSC20K0240, S. K. Sharma is supported by a subcontract from JPL to participate as a co-PI of the SuperCam Instrument, J. Simon acknowledges funding from M2020 Return Sample Science Participating Scientist supported by NASA Mars Exploration Program, I. Tirona acknowledges funding from M2020 Phase E funding for Robotic Operations—Tactical Sampling, A. Williams acknowledges funding from NASA M2020 Participating Scientist Program, Grant 80NSSC21K0332. F. Gómez acknowledges funding from INTA internal project DAXE (S.IGS22001). M. A. Sephton was supported by UK Space Agency Grant V006134/1. Alicia Vaughan acknowledges funding through NASA Agreement 80HQTR20T0096. T. Fornaro acknowledges funding from ASI/INAF agreement no. 2023-3-HH, Mini Grant Ricerca Fondamentale INAF 2022. E. Cloutis acknowledges funding from NSERC (RGPIN-2023-04582) and the Canadian Space Agency (22EXPCOI4). WATSON and ACI images are acquired and focus merges processed by Malin Space Science Systems. We would like to thank the Mars2020 Science and Engineering teams for their work supporting the mission that has enabled the scientific research presented in this manuscript, and thank reviewer Michael Thorpe, R. Aileen Yingst, Editor Deanne Rogers, and one anonymous reviewer whose careful and insightful reviews greatly improved this work.

Data Availability

The data in this paper are from the Mars2020 instruments SuperCam, PIXL, SHERLOC, WATSON, Mastcam-Z, and MEDA. The SuperCam data include the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), Visible/near infrared (VISIR) Spectroscopy, and images from the Remote Microimager. The PIXL data include images, PIXL spectra and diffraction data, and oxide concentrations. The Mastcam-Z data include multispectral data, stereo images, and results of the 3-D processing documented in Paar et al. (2023). The MEDA data include images, ground temperature, and relative humidity. The SHERLOC data include spectra and ACI images, and the WATSON data includes images. The SuperCam Major-element Oxide Compositions (MOC), total emissivity, and all raw data and processed calibrated data files are present in the Planetary Data System (Wiens, Maurice, Deen, et al., 2021) (PDS). The SuperCam H scores are generated after Forni et al. (2013), and the retrieved H component used to generate the H scores after Forni et al. (2013) is included in Hausrath et al. (2023). The Cl scores are generated after Cousin et al. (2025), and the S scores after Meslin et al. (2022), and documented in those publications. The PIXL images, spectra, and oxides are documented in the PDS (Allwood & Hurowitz, 2021). The Mastcam-Z image and spectra data are available in the PDS (Bell et al., 2021). The MEDA data utilized in the manuscript are available in the PDS (Rodriguez-Manfredi and de la Torre Juarez, 2021). The SHERLOC and WATSON data are available in the PDS (Beegle et al., 2021). The Navcam images are available on the PDS (Maki, Deen, et al., 2020). The data from previous missions presented in Figure 2 are summarized in papers as described (Gellert, 2019) and the PDS for the Mars Exploration Rovers at the PDS Geosciences Node site: https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/mer/mer_apxs_oxide.htm. The SI for this document is available at E. M. Hausrath et al. (2024).

Supplemental Material

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