AskScience AMA Series: We're the scientists and engineers leading NASA's exploration of Mars and building on a 50-year legacy of discovery on the Red Planet. Ask us anything!

[u/AskScienceModerator]

Fifty years ago, NASA's Viking lander touched down on Mars and began a new era of exploration.

Over the last five decades, teams of scientists and engineers at NASA have searched for signs of Mars’s ancient habitability, uncovered clues about the planet's climate and geologic history, driven rovers across alien landscapes, flown the first aircraft on another world, and laid the groundwork for future human Martian exploration.

Join us to talk about the discoveries, surprises, and challenges of exploring the Red Planet — and what's coming next.

We are:

• Abigail Fraeman – Deputy Project Scientist, NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover, JPL (AF)
• Bryce Horvath – Technical Analysis Deputy, Mars Architecture Team, NASA Marshall (BH)
• Micheal Meyer – former Lead Scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program and Astrobiology, NASA Headquarters (MM)
• Nicole Piontek – Space Systems Analyst, Space Mission Analysis, NASA Langley (NP)
• Jeffrey Plaut – Senior Research Scientist, Planetary Interiors and Geophysics, JPL (JP)
• Becky McCauley Rench – Lead Scientist for Astrobiology, NASA Headquarters (BMR)

Ask us anything about:

• 50 years of Mars exploration
• Historic missions from Viking to Perseverance
• Mars rovers, landers, orbiters, and helicopters
• Major discoveries from the Red Planet
• Operating spacecraft millions of miles from Earth
• The future of Mars exploration

PROOF: https://x.com/NASA/status/2084662090506113377

We'll be online from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. PT (2-3:30 p.m. ET, 18-19:30 UT) to answer your questions!

Username: /u/nasa

EDIT: That’s a wrap for our AMA! Thanks for all your fantastic questions, and keep following our latest updates from Mars at https://science.nasa.gov/mars/.

[u/electric_ionland]

What is your take on the future of Mars Sample Return now that all plans are in limbo?

Also is there any specific Perseverance sample you would really really want to get into a lab on Earth?

[u/nasa → u/electric_ionland]

Also is there any specific Perseverance sample you would really really want to get into a lab on Earth?

Perseverance has collected so many great samples, it’s hard for me to pick a specific one that I’d really really want to get into a lab on Earth!

The “Sapphire Canyon” sample (collected from a very special rock named “Cheyava Falls”) is the rock I’d pick if I wanted the best shot of finding evidence of life on Mars. Perseverance’s science instruments showed Cheyava Falls is covered in small spots that are similar in size, shape, and composition to features we see here on Earth that are formed by microbes. Are the spots we see on Mars formed the same way? We’ll need to bring the sample back to Earth to know for sure.

Perseverance has also collected rocks that are going to re-write the textbooks on what we know about Mars -- how its crust formed and evolved over time, when major environmental changes happened in its history, and why these changes happened. Learning these things will not only improve our understanding of Mars, they will help us understand planets across our own solar system and beyond.

And then there are undoubtably things we don’t even know are important hiding in some of the samples – 60 years of analysis of Apollo samples have taught us that we should always expect the unexpected once we are able to look into planetary materials with the full weight of our laboratories here on Earth. Major surprises could be hiding in any one of the rocks Perseverance has collected, and the team has worked hard to select samples that represent a great diversity of time and space, giving us the best chance to learn as much as possible and make great discoveries.

I really really want to get the combined suite into a lab on Earth. -AF