Written by Roger C. Wiens, SuperCam Principal Investigator for NASA’s Perseverance rover at Purdue College
Nov. 4, 2026
Exploration on Mars turns up the surprising. Perseverance is provided with a improbable set of devices for learning the rock document of this historical planet. Each PIXL and SuperCam have nice capabilities for detecting all types of parts. SHERLOC, SuperCam, and PIXL can detect minerals utilizing varied strategies together with x-ray fluorescence, Raman, and infrared spectroscopies. As a aspect good thing about the way in which SuperCam performs its Raman spectroscopy, it might additionally research time-resolved luminescence. Usually luminescence happens over a broad wavelength vary (most of Earth’s business lighting makes use of luminescence ultimately or one other). Two years in the past, the SuperCam crew was startled to search out robust, slender luminescence peaks at two wavelengths of 692.7 and 694.1 nanometers once they shot a light-colored rock with the laser. This luminescence comes from delayed atomic transitions in chromium atoms current in a corundum mineral construction. SuperCam can time the delay of the atomic transitions through the ensuing photons, and so we might confirm that this emission got here from chromium in corundum. The outcomes had been revealed in Geophysical Analysis Letters by a crew led by Ann Ollila earlier this yr, so you may learn all about it. The gemstone model of chromium-containing corundum is ruby. Previous to putting in SuperCam on Perseverance, we positioned a ruby within the laser beam and watched your complete room pulse an excellent crimson as SuperCam’s laser beam hit the gemstone; it was extraordinarily shiny.
Whereas we haven’t discovered collectable rubies on Mars but, the little corundum crystals are serving to us study extra about Mars’ previous. Corundum is a metamorphic and pegmatitic mineral which we’d not look forward to finding on Mars, a planet that lacks plate tectonics. Nonetheless, giant meteor and asteroid impacts can create native metamorphism attributable to long-term heating from the impression. As a result of we’re in a really historical terrain close to the rim of Jezero crater, we are able to count on some proof of localized metamorphism. As the primary mission in such terrain, we’re studying new issues. Earlier within the mission we tried this system solely not often; recently we now have carried out the time-resolved luminescence observations steadily on light-toned rocks to search for extra proof of impression results. It’s nice to have this surprising instrument on board as we delve additional into Mars’ deep previous.