Could NASA's revolutionary device on Perseverance rover find traces of life on Mars?

NASA is set to send the Mars Perseverance Rover to the Red Planet with the ambitious Mars 2020 Mission. The rover has once again been loaded with equipment that will help search for signs that perhaps there once was life on Mars. The device named SHERLOC, the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals instrument will scan the Martian surface to detect signs of life. Read on to know how this device will lead us to the many answers about the red planet.

Source: NASA

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Mars Perseverance Rover: SHERLOC’s role on the mission

According to the space agency, SHERLOC will be an instrument detecting chemicals on the Martian surface which might help us understand the history of the planet, in terms of life, if there was any. To keep the instruments functioning up to the mark, a team of NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science division from the Johnston Space Centre has recently built the device SHERLOC and properly tuned its function during the upcoming mission. The space agency has claimed that the remarkable engineering behind SHERLOC is pretty complicated. SHERLOC is a highly sophisticated calibration device, it will also be used for a lot of other scientific and investigative purposes.

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Mars Perseverance Rover: How is SHERLOC engineered?

SHERLOC has been mounted at the end of the Mars Perseverance Rover's seven-foot robotic arm. It includes a laser, camera, and also chemical analysers called spectrometers. It is surprising how many sensitive components have been fitted in one device. But, all of them will be used together to search for substances that have been altered by water. And the proof about the presence of water itself will possibly reveal evidence of past microscopic life on the red planet.

Source: NASA

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The space agency claims that the Mars Curiosity Rover’s scientific instruments will be able to endure all sorts of harsh conditions from the time they leave earth till they arrive on Mars and even thereafter. As per the Space Agency, SHERLOC is approximately the size of a large-sized cell phone. On its face 10 “targets,” are placed which consist of samples of different kinds of materials.

Source: NASA

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The idea of the space agency behind this engineering is that researchers back home will occasionally be checking SHERLOC’s function by directing it to scan different materials on its path. The researchers will already know what the readings on those materials should be when SHERLOC is working correctly. In fact, Mars Perseverance Rover’s SHERLOC is capable of compensating for the errors when the data will be analysed later.