NASA to send chunk of Mars back to Red Planet aboard its next rover mission

A Piece of Mars is Going Home Rohit Bhartia of NASA's Mars 2020 mission holds a slice of a meteorite scientists have determined came from Mars. One of two slices will be used for testing a laser instrument for NASA's Mars 2020 rover while it's still on Earth; the other slice will go to Mars onboard the rover. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

While much of NASA's mainstream focus of late has been on sending humans to Mars for the first time, the space agency will actually send a piece of the planet back home with its next rover mission.

The U.S. space agency reports in a news release that it determined that a slice of meteorite it found in Oman back in 1999 actually came from the Red Planet itself.

Two chunks of the meteorite, SaU008, are actually being used by NASA as it prepares for its next rover mission. One piece will be used on Earth to help develop the "souped-up science machine's" laser instrument, and the other will go along for the ride to Mars.

NASA says that it owns a limited supply of meteorites from Mars, but asks the question seemingly to itself of"why not use an actual piece of Mars" to work on instruments headed to the planet?

"We're studying things on such a fine scale that slight misalignments, caused by changes in temperature or even the rover settling into sand, can require us to correct our aim," Luther Beegle, a principal investigator for NASA's JPL, said in the release.

"By studying how the instrument sees a fixed target, we can understand how it will see a piece of the Martian surface."

As to how limited the Martian meteorite supply is here on Earth, NASA says there are only about 200 of them confirmed by the Meteoritical Society. SaU008 will represent the first piece of Martian rock to make it all the way to Earth and then actually sent back home.

"Every year, we provide hundreds of meteorite specimens to scientists all over the world for study," Caroline Smith, curator of meteorites at London's Natural History Museum, said in the release. "This is a first for us: sending one of our samples back home for the benefit of science."

The next Mars rover is being built and developed at JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for use in the Mars 2020 mission. The rover is touted as a new "souped-up science machine," and made up of about 85 percent of heritage hardware from 2012's Curiosity rover.

The U.S. space agency says that while the next rover is made up mostly of existing parts, it has a completely new mission and set of goals. The Mars 2020 rover will scan the Red Planet for signs of ancient life by studying terrain that once consisted of flowing rivers and lakes more than 3.5 billion years ago.

Some of the new science instruments included on the 2020 Mars rover are an X-ray spectrometer, ultraviolet laser, excited rings of carbon atoms, and a ground-penetrating radar that will allow NASA to look under the surface of Mars up to 30 feet deep depending on terrain.

It will also get some upgraded Curiosity equipment in the form of new hardware, color cameras, a zoom lens and a laser that can reportedly vaporize rocks and soil.

The rover will come with 23 "eyes," which gives it 18 more viewpoints than the Pathfinder offered back in 1997. NASA cites "quantum" leaps in camera technology as the ability to put sensors and cameras in nearly every nook and cranny of its new rover.

The rover mission will launch sometime between July and August 2020 and has an expected target land date of February 2021. NASA says that the mission will address questions "about the potential for life on Mars," as it will seek out any signs of habitable conditions on the planet.

The U.S. space agency says the Mars 2020 rover will use a drill for the first time that can collect core samples, with the hopes a future mission could return the samples to Earth.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.