Perseverance rover at Enchanted Lake on Mars; NASA says 'best place to find signs of life'

NASA's Perseverance rover has come across a location that is being considered one of the best locations to find signs of ancient life on Mars. Called the 'Enchanted Lake', the location is an outcrop having layered rocks at the base of the Jezero crater, Perseverance's landing and current exploration site. This location is named after a landmark in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, and the image it features in was taken by one of Perseverance's Hazard Avoidance Cameras (Hazcams) on April 30.

How is Enchanted Lake the best place to find signs of life?

The mission team exploring the region through Perseverance believes that at the western edge of Jezero Crater, the delta formed at the convergence of a Martian river and a crater lake billions of years ago. It is because of this watery history that the experts find this location with the most promise of offering clues to microbial life on Mars, which is Perseverance's primary objective.

"When I saw the Hazcam image of Enchanted Lake, it was love at first sight", said Katie Stack Morgan, the deputy project scientist for NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, in a statement. "This image provided our first up-close glimpse of sedimentary rocks – the ones I’ve been most eager to explore since Jezero was named the landing site for Perseverance nearly four years ago.”

She further revealed that the Enchanted Lake marked the mission team's first encounter with sedimentary rocks in the Jezero crater. Sedimentary rocks are formed when fine particles are carried away by flowing water, get deposited as layers and eventually turn into rocks. "Even if we find other targets in the delta to sample, I will always have a special place in my heart for the rocks that showed me that we sent the rover to the right place,” Stack Morgan said.

Currently, Perseverance is parked at a location called "Hogwallow Flats" which is a field of sedimentary rocks. In this region, the rover will sample and analyse a few more rocks and then the team would decide to either return to the Enchanted Lake or explore other new sites.