MEDIA ADVISORY: Mars 2020 rover SuperCam presents first sounds, images
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Illustration depicts NASA‘s Perseverance rover operating on Mars. Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
WHAT: An online press conference will present the first Mars sounds and images via SuperCam, an instrument located on top of the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Shiv Sharma is a co-investigator on the SuperCam instrument team.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 10 at 7 a.m. (HST)
WHERE: https://youtu.be/0DAhLuUnDwE
WHO: UH Mānoa’s Shiv Sharma (a researcher with the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology), Los Alamos National Laboratory and France’s National Centre for Space Studies.
WHY: This is the first opportunity to show SuperCam data to the public. SuperCam is currently undergoing a series of tests designed to verify the operating status of all of its systems, part of an overall rover check-out phase which will last about three months.
ADDITIONAL FACTS:
-
The SuperCam instrument team will assist with detection of biosignatures—indicators that life existed in the distant past.
-
SuperCam is a suite of instruments that uses remote optical measurements and laser spectroscopy to determine fine-scale mineralogy, chemistry, and atomic and molecular composition of samples encountered on Mars.
-
The team will be able to detect organic compounds and biosignatures from a distance on and in rocks, soils and sediment layers on Mars.
Link to video and sound (disregard soundbites): https://bit.ly/3ufdYl