Photo credit: NASA
NASA’s Perseverance rover has discovered something on Mars that has scientists very excited: a rock. But not just any rock, this one shows potential signs of ancient life on the Red Planet!
The rock, named Cheyava Falls, has unique chemical signatures and structural features that the NASA team are excited to investigate. The rock measures 3.2 feet by 2 feet and has a connection to our home state—it was named after a Grand Canyon waterfall!
“Cheyava Falls is the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance,” said Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist of Caltech in Pasadena.
Scientists are interested in studying Cheyava Falls for possible signs of ancient life. Astrobiologists, space scientists who study the origins of life and the possibility of life beyond Earth, use a seven-step scale to research whether a sample could indicate life. The Cheyava Falls sample is at step one on that scale, which means that they have a lot more research to do to learn more about the rock.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover launched on July 30, 2020, and landed on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. The rover’s objective is to seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and soil, with a potential pickup by a future mission that would bring the samples back to Earth for detailed study.
“We have designed the route for Perseverance to ENSURE that it goes to areas with the potential for interesting scientific samples,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This trip through the Neretva Vallis riverbed paid off as we found something we’ve never seen before, which will give our scientists so much to study.”
The planned operational life for Perseverance was originally one Martian year on the surface, or 687 days, but Perseverance has already outlasted that goal. Perseverance is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration goal to help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet—just think, we could see people on Mars one day!
New Panda Pair Wows at San Diego Zoo
SAN DIEGO—For the first time in 21 years, a new pair of giant pandas have landed on U.S. soil from their home in China!
On Aug. 8, Yun Chuan, a nearly 5-year-old male, and Xin Bao, a nearly 4-year-old female, made their public debut in an impressive ceremony. Their new home is called Panda Ridge at the San Diego Zoo.
These adorable animals are on loan from China and are part of that country’s breeding program. For decades, giant pandas were listed as an endangered species. Major efforts to protect their habitat and raise their numbers paid off.
There are now around 1,850 giant pandas in the wild and around 300 in captive breeding programs. So in 2016, their status was upgraded to “vulnerable.”
They inhabit lush mountainous areas of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces of China. While they do occasionally eat meat, eggs, berries and even fungi, 99 percent of their diet is bamboo. An Aug. 21 TikTok video posted by the zoo gives you more info about the giant panda’s digestive process than you probably ought to know.
While there are more than 1,000 species of bamboo, pandas only like certain types and certain parts of the plant, depending on the season. The zoo and affiliated Safari Park grow a dozen bamboo species for the two to eat and has 100 other varieties that Yun Chuan and Xin Bao may bite into later on.
A giant panda can eat 26–84 pounds of bamboo a day! But most of that fiber goes right through them, so pandas need to poop about 40 times a day!
Another pair of pandas should arrive at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., later this year. And a third pair of pandas will start calling the San Francisco Zoo home in 2025.
