Mars' History May Have Included Life
Perseverance, the Mars rover, has been on that red planet for nearly two years now. It landed on Mars on February 18th, 2021. I'll be sure to wish it a happy landing day tomorrow. ^_^
Before we marvel at what it's discovered, let's just take a second to really think about that bit of news. The first person in space was the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. That's just about 62 years ago. In less than the average lifetime, we have gone from the first person to leave Earth and go into space to a moon landing, hundreds of human and hardware launches into space, an international space station where scientists live and work for about six months at a time, we have multiple telescopes exploring the vastness and sending us back images, and we've landed rovers on another planet in our solar system to explore and send back information on what it finds. It's no less than completely astonishing. "Perseverance" seems like a completely fitting name.
Anyway, back to the rover. Percy as it is lovingly known, has drilled into rocks, travelled over truly alien land, and built upon the knowledge gathered by its predecessors, like Curiosity, Spirit, Opportunity, and Sojourner.
Landing in a crater called Jezero, Percy examines and collects samples to analyze for any hints of past life in the possible ancient lake. Volcanic rock, carbon-bearing materials, and long-gone bodies of water which may have held alien life.
There is much more to read and be in awe over, here.
And make sure to wish Percy and team a happy landing day. ^_^