The search for life beyond Earth is on.
NASA’s newest Mars rover is getting ready to collect its first rock sample from the surface of Mars and stow it away for a future return mission to Earth, where NASA will test it for signs of ancient microbial life.
Perseverance’s science campaign has just begun, and the rover has already stumbled upon interesting rocks and sedimentary layers that tell a part of Mars’ larger history.
The Perseverance rover landed on Mars on February 18 and has been on a Martian road trip ever since to scour its landing site, Jezero Crater. Jezero is a 28-mile wide, 1600-foot deep crater located in a basin slightly north of the Martian equator. It once housed an ancient lake estimated to have dried out 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.