The six-wheeled robot Mars rover, Perseverance, will start climbing up an ancient delta structure in the crater where it landed on Tuesday.
It will travel uphill, stopping sometimes to inspect rocks that appear to have the best potential of preserving traces of past life on the planet. Perseverance will collect some of these rocks on its trip down, depositing the samples at the delta’s base for following missions to retrieve.
In the 2030s, the intention is to bring this material down to Earth for a thorough examination.
Life On Mars
Because of its proximity and similarities to Earth, astrobiology is interested in the possibility of life on Mars.
There has been no evidence of previous or contemporary life on Mars yet.
The surface environment of Mars may have contained liquid water during the ancient Noachian period and may have been livable for microbes, however, habitable conditions do not always indicate life.
Humans On Mars
Since the late 1940s, as part of the broader study of Mars, the idea of transporting humans to Mars has been the topic of aeronautical engineering and scientific investigations.
Elon Musk and SpaceX have recently announced that human flights to Mars will begin as early as 2030.
