The Perseverance Mars rover, trundling on the surface of the Red Planet, has scooped the third sample to be analysed and returned to Earth. This one is different from the first two since it’s loaded with a greenish material called olivine.

The SUV-sized rover had initially abraded a small patch of this rock to remove the surface layer and get a look underneath. “Another little piece of Mars to carry with me. My latest sample is from a rock loaded with the greenish mineral olivine, and there are several ideas among my science team about how it got there. Hypotheses are flying! Science rules,” the rover team said in a tweet.

The Curiosity rover had first found the chemical signatures of the mineral olivine on the Red Planet, which is a magnesium iron silicate that constitutes most of Earth’s upper mantle. While JPL, which runs the rover on Martian ground, is yet to announce any details about the scoop, it could be the first such mineral-rich scoop from the planet to be brought to Earth.

The rover had collected the second of 40 samples to return to Earth in September that has been stored and hermetically sealed inside the rover to be retrieved by future missions. The rover has been exploring the Jazero crater where it landed in February this year and has been able to scope out the region for potential sample sites. The sample was cored from a rock dubbed “Rochette” after it failed in its first attempt in August.

The rover made the first attempt to collect a sample in early August, but the rock crumbled during the process of drilling and coring. For its second attempt, the rover drove to a different location, where the team selected a rock. Perseverance’s mission includes studying the Jezero region to understand the geology and ancient habitability of the area, as well as to characterize the past climate.

“The rover will characterise the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet,” JPL has said.

PERSEVERANCE’S TWIN BEGINS TERRAIN TEST

OPTIMISM, the full-scale engineering model of the Perseverance rover, has begun a series of rigorous tests to assess the risk of potential driving hazards on the surface of the Red Planet. A twin of the Perseverance rover, the Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars (OPTIMISM) will act as a testbed for the actual rover trundling millions of kilometres away.

“The rover will perform a crucial job in the weeks ahead: navigating the Mars Yard’s slopes and hazards, drilling sample cores from boulders, and storing the samples in metal tubes just like Perseverance is doing in its hunt for signs of ancient microbial life,” JPL said in a release.

OPTIMISM first rolled out into the Mars Yard in September 2020, when it conducted mobility tests. But it recently received some key updates to match features available on Perseverance, including additional mobility software and the bulk of the exquisitely complex sample caching system.