Publications by authors named "Jorge I Nunez"
Article Synopsis
- Perseverance's Mastcam-Z captures detailed stereo and multispectral images, offering a comprehensive view of the geology in Jezero crater on Mars.
- The rocks depicted show features indicating they are of igneous or impactite origin, with minimal water alteration and include various mineral compositions like mafic silicates and olivine.
- Additional imaging reveals important atmospheric conditions, including dust variations and unique interactions caused by dust devils and the Ingenuity helicopter, which aid in understanding Mars' environment and assist in rover operations.
The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero crater, Mars, in February 2021. We used the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument to perform deep-ultraviolet Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy of three rocks within the crater. We identify evidence for two distinct ancient aqueous environments at different times.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFuture astrobiological missions to Mars are likely to emphasize the use of rovers with in situ petrologic capabilities for selecting the best samples at a site for in situ analysis with onboard lab instruments or for caching for potential return to Earth. Such observations are central to an understanding of the potential for past habitable conditions at a site and for identifying samples most likely to harbor fossil biosignatures. The Multispectral Microscopic Imager (MMI) provides multispectral reflectance images of geological samples at the microscale, where each image pixel is composed of a visible/shortwave infrared spectrum ranging from 0.
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