Perseverance Mars rover has moved to a new site. This time it will explore a region called “Krokodillen”, which is indeed related to these reptiles in a certain way. The vehicle will search there for sedimentary rocks that contain traces of life.
“Krokodillen” region
The team working with the Perseverance rover on Mars reported that it is beginning to explore a new area that has been named “Krokodillen”. Of course, there are no predatory reptiles on Mars, but this small plateau of 30 hectares really has a certain remote connection with them.
Krokodillen was named after a mountain range on the Norwegian island of Prins Karls Forland, which it closely resembles. And its name really means “crocodile”. It is worth saying that NASA specialists in general give the objects that explore on the red planet rovers interesting names. For example, Perseverance has previously explored an area called Witch Hazel Hill.
In general, all this is in the vicinity of the Jezero crater, and if the Perseverance route were located on Earth, it would be possible to drive through it all in one day. However, on Mars, discoveries can be encountered at every turn.
What’s interesting about the new place
Although there are no crocodiles on Mars, scientists believe Perseverance’s new work site is very promising in terms of finding life. The rocks that compose it represent an intermediate stage between the ancient volcanic rocks of Jezero Crater and what the surrounding terrain is made up of.
Previous studies have already found clay on this plateau. It can only be formed in the presence of flowing water. In addition, this rock, consisting of very small particles well preserves biological samples, so if somewhere to look for traces of ancient life, it is there.
In addition, olivine and carbonates have been found in the rocks that make up Krokodillen. And while the first one is a common volcanic material, the second ones are formed only in water, so exploring them you can learn a lot about the times when Mars was warmer and wetter.
Perseverance samples
The Krokodillen Formation is even older than the Jezero Crater. Therefore, if traces of life are found there, they will date back to earlier times than whatever has been found so far. And it leaves the Mars rover team with an interesting choice.
One of Perseverance’s main tasks is to collect and preserve samples to send to Earth labs. As of 2025, it has already sealed two regolith samples from the surface, three control empties, and one atmospheric sample. Its main contribution for today is 26 rock cores from the depth, which will be studied especially carefully.
However, only 25 of them are sealed, and one remains unsealed. The fact is that there are only 7 empty containers in total, and there are still plenty of promising places to sample. Therefore, regarding the last sample, which contains spherules that may be evidence of a meteorite impact, scientists are still deciding.
The sample was only taken on April 28, and if they find anything in Krokodillen that has a high probability of containing organics, it will be discarded and a new core will be taken in its place. The rover’s work on Witch Hazel Hill was very productive. There it found traces of an ancient waterfall and selected clay traces from it. Therefore, the scientists hope that the situation will be no worse at the new place as well.
According to phys.org
