Final week, after braving a subject of sand dunes and traversing the desiccated remnants of an historic river, NASA’s Perseverance rover reached the shining rock outcropping on the Martian horizon that the rover’s operators have named “Brilliant Angel.”Perseverance has now begun its scientific investigation of a really distinctive place in its environment. Its first motion: digging into the bottom, scanning and imaging the Mars soil with X-rays. Over the approaching months, scientists will parse the information that Perseverance sends again.Brilliant Angel obtained its identify for being an unusually light-colored patch of rock in pictures taken from orbit. In opposition to the Martian panorama, the outcropping’s dramatic look caught scientists’ eyes. The patch’s web site on the fringe of Neretva Vallis, a dried river channel that feeds into Perseverance’s Jezero Crater touchdown web site — and a channel that Perseverance had trailed for weeks — urged that Brilliant Angel may harbor attention-grabbing particulars about Mars’ wetter previous.As Perseverance approached Brilliant Angel, the rover’s operators and mission scientists on Earth obtained their first close-up seems on the place. Some scientists suppose that Brilliant Angel’s rocks symbolize older materials that was uncovered by now-vanished water eroding the bottom.Associated: Perseverance rover’s Mars rock pattern might include greatest proof of attainable historic lifeAfter a number of days of sightseeing and photo-taking, Perseverance started to dig, decreasing its high-speed drill into the bottom. The rover then cleared the mud away by blasting it with nitrogen fuel. Performing such a shallow dig, which scientists name an abrasion, permits the rover to clear a circle of the Martian floor’s weathered outer layer and get on the pristine rock beneath.Breaking house information, the newest updates on rocket launches, skywatching occasions and extra!On this spot, Perseverance deployed its PIXL instrument, a tool that lights up the Martian floor with an X-ray beam and measures the sunshine that bounces again. It is too quickly for scientists to have processed the information, however over the approaching months, they are going to analyze it to be taught extra about how Brilliant Angel fashioned and the way it pertains to Neretva Vallis’ former river.Now, Perseverance’s science staff will decide if the rover ought to take an much more drastic step — figuring out whether or not samples from Brilliant Angel will make positive additions to its assortment. If that’s the case, a deliberate return marketing campaign might ship Brilliant Angel rocks again to Earth.