Mars Report: SHERLOC Instrument Update from NASA's Perseverance Rover (September 23, 2021)

SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals), an instrument aboard NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, has been hard at work determining the best rocks to sample and search for evidence of prehistoric life. SHERLOC, which is mounted on the rover's robotic arm, is the sole device that can directly identify organics, the constituents of life. SHERLOC can assist scientists determine whether any of the rocks were created in an ancient livable environment by characterizing the chemical makeup of rocks. Spectrometers, a laser, and cameras, such as WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering), are included in SHERLOC. A color camera named WATSON captures up-close pictures of the surface textures and rock grains. One of the Caltech scientists on the science team, Eva Scheller, delivers an instrument update in this video.