"Launched earlier in July 30, Perseverance is looking for signs of ancient life on Mars. Jezero Crater was a great place to land for this mission for a few reasons. It is suspected by scientists that rivers poured into the crater making a lake. Life might have lived here and the rock and soil samples might help prove this."-- Jif dillemuth, 8th grade
A new NASA rover, named Perseverance successfully landed at Jezero Crater on February 18th. Launched earlier in July 30, Perseverance is looking for signs of ancient life on Mars. Jezero Crater was a great place to land for this mission for a few reasons. It is suspected by scientists that rivers poured into the crater making a lake. Life might have lived here and the rock and soil samples might help prove this.
To collect samples from Mars, Perseverance will store them in tubes that will later be sent back to Earth. Samples aren’t the only things it will collect, footage of the landscape is also important. According to NASA.gov, cameras are located in many spots on the rover to record its journey. Perseverance has two commercial cameras on its back shell, which captured its parachute release during the landing. Another camera is focused on the downward perspective, while the other is looking upward. Two more cameras are located on it’s chassis (the base frame of the rover) to get a view of both the upper and lower angles.
A small helicopter drone, named Ingenuity, is kept under Perseverance. Once many system checks are completed, it will hover and observe Persverence’s surroundings.
In addition to these features, the core of the rover contains two devices that can set an ultraviolet light that when read by Perseverance can work out the chemical compounds it contains. These are called Raman spectrometers. Comparing designs, Perseverance and Curiosity are pretty similar.
The $2.7 billion project is focused on finding signs of ancient microbial life and will get it’s first samples sent back to Earth 2031 at the earliest. Perseverance, named by a seventh-grader during the “Name the Rover” essay contest, will stay exploring Mars to discover things we might have not known about the planet.
Perseverance is similar to a previous NASA rover launched in 2011, named Curiosity, which launched in 2011, which is currently in Gale Crater. Perseverance is looking for signs of ancient life on Mars. NASA has been studying Mars for over 40 years now.
To collect samples from Mars, Perseverance will store them in tubes that will later be sent back to Earth. Samples aren’t the only things it will collect, footage of the landscape is also important. According to NASA.gov, cameras are located in many spots on the rover to record its journey. Perseverance has two commercial cameras on its back shell, which captured its parachute release during the landing. Another camera is focused on the downward perspective, while the other is looking upward. Two more cameras are located on it’s chassis (the base frame of the rover) to get a view of both the upper and lower angles.
A small helicopter drone, named Ingenuity, is kept under Perseverance. Once many system checks are completed, it will hover and observe Persverence’s surroundings.
In addition to these features, the core of the rover contains two devices that can set an ultraviolet light that when read by Perseverance can work out the chemical compounds it contains. These are called Raman spectrometers. Comparing designs, Perseverance and Curiosity are pretty similar.
The $2.7 billion project is focused on finding signs of ancient microbial life and will get it’s first samples sent back to Earth 2031 at the earliest. Perseverance, named by a seventh-grader during the “Name the Rover” essay contest, will stay exploring Mars to discover things we might have not known about the planet.
Perseverance is similar to a previous NASA rover launched in 2011, named Curiosity, which launched in 2011, which is currently in Gale Crater. Perseverance is looking for signs of ancient life on Mars. NASA has been studying Mars for over 40 years now.