Between a rock and a hard place (to be) for this chunk of Mars

A solid Martian finding way back home after 450,000 years shows perseverance pays.

By ET Bureau | Mar 18, 2021, 08.16 AM IST

A slice of SaU 008. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Salmon, hilsa and other fish make their way back to their spawning grounds every year. Human beings also feel emotional satisfaction upon returning to their ‘native’ place.

Sentiments attached to places of origin have inspired great causes, not to mention art and literature. So, it could be assumed that some sort of sentiment has led to a 54.6 million km ‘ghar wapsi’ for an unusual prodigal child: a chip off a 450-million-old Martian rock that crash-landed on Earth 450,000 years ago.

Had Earthlings not exhibited a relatively recent quest to explore Mars, it may have continued to languish in the Natural History Museum in London where it was lodged after being retrieved from Oman and named Sayh al Uhaymir 008.

If rocks were sentient, it could also be presumed that the Martian was pining for home and kind scientists decided to let it hitch a ride on Nasa’s Mars mission.

The real reason for its homecoming is more mundane and involves the camera, laser and spectrometer of Sherloc (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals).

Scientists aver that an Earth- returned Martian compared locally with its in situ brethren may yield more accurate assessments about their composition than those conducted on Earth. That the rock is finally back home, however, shows that Perseverance pays.

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NASA is working on a Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment (MOXIE) that will let future explorers produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for breathing. The carbattery-sized instrument does this by collecting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and electrochemically splitting the molecules into oxygen and carbon monoxide molecules.