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A NASA rover has landed on Mars on an epic quest to bring back rocks that can tell if life ever existed on the red planet.
Perseverance landed just before 10 a.m. (NZT) after completing the riskiest part of its Mars landing in which flight controllers could only watch the spacecraft hurtling toward the red planet, a death trap for the incoming spaceships.
It took an 11½ minute delay for a signal to confirm its success in reaching Earth.
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NASA’s Mars rover Perserverance sent a photo of the red planet shortly after landing.
The pre-programmed spacecraft was designed to hit the thin Martian atmosphere at 19,500 km / h, then use a parachute to slow down and a rocket-guided platform known as an aerial crane to lower the rover the rest of the way to the surface.
The six-wheeler’s landing marks the third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China entered orbit around the planet on successive days last week.
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All three missions took off in July to take advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars, traveling some 483 million kilometers in nearly seven months.
NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP
This illustration provided by NASA shows the Perseverance rover, below, landing on Mars.
Perseverance, the largest and most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, becomes the ninth spacecraft to successfully land on Mars, each originating from the United States, beginning in the 1970s.
The plutonium-powered, car-sized rover aimed at NASA’s smallest and most complicated target: an 8 by 6.5 km swath in an ancient river delta filled with wells, cliffs and rock fields. Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, when water was still flowing on the planet.
Percy, as he is known, was designed to drill with his 2-meter arm and collect rock samples that could contain signs of past microscopic life.
The plan called for three to four dozen chalk-size samples to be sealed in tubes and set aside on Mars to be retrieved by a recovery rover and brought home by another spacecraft, with the goal of returning them. to Earth as early as 2031..
NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP
In this illustration provided by NASA, the Perseverance rover fires its descent stage engines as it approaches the Martian surface. This phase of your entry, descent, and landing sequence, or EDL, is known as “powered descent.”
Scientists hope to answer one of the central questions of theology, philosophy and space exploration.
“Are we alone in this kind of vast cosmic desert, just flying through space, or is life much more common? Does it just arise when and where conditions are right? “said deputy project scientist Ken Williford.
“Big, basic questions, and we don’t know the answers yet. So we are really about to potentially answer these huge questions. “
NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP
Landing will take place on Friday morning (NZT).
China’s spacecraft includes a smaller rover that will also search for evidence of life, if it does so safely from orbit in May or June.
Mars has proven to be a treacherous place: In the span of less than three months in 1999, an American spacecraft was destroyed while entering orbit because engineers had mixed English and metric units, and an American lander crashed on Mars afterward. that their engines stalled prematurely.
NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP
An illustration of the Perseverance rover.
NASA is partnering with the European Space Agency to bring the rocks home. The Perseverance mission alone costs almost $ 3 billion.
The only way to confirm, or rule out, signs of past lives is to analyze the samples in the best laboratories in the world. Instruments small enough to be sent to Mars would not have the necessary precision.
“The Mars sample return project is probably the most challenging thing NASA has attempted,” said planetary science director Lori Glaze, “and we don’t do any of these things alone.”
