National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) officials will discuss a discovery related to a special sample that the Perseverance rover found on Mars on Wednesday, September 10. Rumours suggest that there will be some visuals during the teleconference discussion, which will be streamed on the Nasa agency's website at 3 pm GMT (8.30 pm IST). An official press release states that Perseverance retrieved the boulder in question from Jezero Crater in July 2024. This is the location on Mars that the rover has been exploring since February 2021, and which Nasa believes could have once supported life as we know it. According to the announcement, the rock is known as 'Sapphire Canyon' and originates from 'Neretva Vallis', described as a "river valley carved by water rushing into Jezero Crater long ago". The arrowhead-shaped Sapphire Canyon was originally reported by Nasa as having been taken from another "vein-filled rock" called "Cheyava Falls". The Perseverance team initially observed markings on the specimen, known as "poppy seeds" and "leopard spots", which are prominent features of Cheyava Falls. sHowever, Cheyava Falls is renowned for another reason. As stated by Morgan Cable, a research scientist for Perseverance, in a video about Sapphire Canyon published by Nasa on April 10, Cheyava Falls is "the only place we've found on Mars so far where we have chemical evidence that chemical reactions associated with life could have been happening, as well as organic molecules." It should be noted that the Perseverance team has been gathering samples from Sapphire Canyon in the hope of eventually returning fragments of the Red Planet to Earth. Specifically, it is the 25th sample. Nasa's Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission was initially intended to accomplish that sample-retrieval procedure. But its future remains uncertain due to financial constraints, a complex launch plan, and shifts in priorities since the Trump administration took office. Although it is unknown if the specific sample Nasa will discuss would require an Earth-based study, it would not be surprising if it did. This belief is based on the views of scientists who favour MSR.
