WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — When the 2020 Mars Rover ‘Perseverance’ launched from Cape Canaveral Thursday morning, Briony Horgan was watching closely.
“We’re so excited that we’re finally able to be on our way to Mars,” she said.
The Purdue University associate professor of planetary science wasn’t on board the rocket...but her work was.
She’s on the Rover Perseverance Science Team – the group of scientists that identified the search site on Mars where Rover will look for signs of past life. Horgan also works on the 20 cameras attached to Perseverance that will allow NASA to see it all.
"It's a fantastic place to look for ancient life,” said Horgan, referring to Jezero Crater.
Horgan said they know from satellite data, the crater used to contain an ancient lake about the size of Lake Tahoe. It includes a river leading into the crater with a delta, and minerals that Horgan said probably formed in the lake.
“They would've helped trap ancient microbes and organic molecules that were once in the lake," she said. “We've been building up to this for decades, trying to understand whether Mars was a suitable place that life could’ve ever existed. And now we're finally sending a rover that can actually go look for signs of ancient life recorded in the rocks.”
NASA is also expected to dig into the rocks and bring back samples to be studied.
Horgan has been on the faculty at Purdue since 2014. The university, known as the ‘Cradle of Astronauts,’ is the alma mater of many of NASA’s most well-known space explorers, including Gus Grissom and Neil Armstrong.
"It’s really exciting to be paving a new path into the unknown,” Horgan said. “And, in particular, it's great to be doing this at Purdue because we can get students involved and train the next generation of space explorers."
