Members of the Perseverance Mars Rover team watch in mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rov...
During the Mars Perseverance engineering and technology overview on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, chief engineer Adam Steltzner displays a rover wheel. The Perseverance Mars rover is due to land on the Red Planet on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission is astrobiology, including the search f...
In New York City on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, the Empire State Building is illuminated in red to celebrate this Thursday’s scheduled landing on Mars of NASA’s Perseverance rover. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geol...
If we find life on the Red Planet, we’ll have astrobiologists like Dr. Kennda Lynch to thank. Lynch is an astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist studying life in extreme environments on Earth as models for characterizing habitable environments and searching for biosignatures on other planetary bodies in our solar system and elsewhere. Prior to obtaining ...
With its heat shield facing the planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover begins its descent through the Martian atmosphere in this illustration. Hundreds of critical events must execute perfectly and exactly on time for the rover to land on Mars safely on Feb. 18, 2021. Entry, Descent, and Landing, or “EDL,” begins when the spacecraft reaches the top of the M...
This illustration shows Jezero Crater — the landing site of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover — as it may have looked billions of years go on Mars, when it was a lake. An inlet and outlet are also visible on either side of the lake. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial li...