On February 18, 2021, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, more commonly known as Perseverance, landed on the surface of Mars. Perseverance launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 30, 2020. For the past ~6 months, the rover has been heading to Mars. Perseverance followed a carefully calculated parabolic path. During the rover’s months of travel, Mars moves along its orbital path. Therefore, scientists must predict where the planet will be on February 18 and plan Perseverance’s path to intercept Mars at the right time.
On February 18, the country waited with bated breath as Perseverance approached Mars. Even as it entered the atmosphere, we watched to see if it would successfully make contact with the surface. The rover got 1 kilometer from the surface. 100 meters. 20 meters. The entire staff shot up and cheered as Perseverance successfully touched down on the red planet.
Perseverance landed in the ancient river delta of a lake that once filled Jerezo Crater. The evidence suggesting that Mars used to house large bodies of water leads us to believe that the planet may have also been home to life at one point. Perseverance is on Mars for at least one Mars year, or two Earth years, to “seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for [a] possible return to Earth”
Perseverance is equipped with seven pieces of key hardware:
Mastcam-Z - an advanced camera system used to both assist with the rover’s operations and analyze the mineralogy of Mars’s surface
SuperCam - provides imaging, chemical composition analysis, and mineralogy from a distance
Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) - allows for more detailed detection and analysis of chemical elements
Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) - maps mineralogy and organic compounds with the use of fine-scale imaging and ultraviolet (UV) lasers
The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) - converts Mars atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen
Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) - provides measurements of temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, and dust size and shape
The Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) - a ground-penetrating radar that will provide centimeter-scale resolution of the geologic structure of the subsurface
These tools will allow this rover to analyze parts of Mars that we have never been able to study before and will prove vital in the search for extraterrestrial life. In addition to this hardware, Perseverance is equipped with experimental and revolutionary technology. Its Terrain Relative Navigation system, an autopilot that actively avoids hazards will allow it to roam the planet of Mars without constantly being operated. It also hosts many sensors for gathering a variety of data both during and after landing. Finally, Perseverance is powered by a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), the same technology used to power Curiosity.
Over the next two years, expect to hear news pop-up about some of this rover’s activity on Mars and hopefully, some amazing discoveries that it makes!
Vocabulary Used In This Article:
Parabolic:of or like a parabola (parabola - a plane curve which is mirror-symmetrical and is approximately U-shaped)
Orbital Path : a regular, repeating path that one object in space takes around another one
River Delta : a landform created by deposition of sediment that is carried by a river as the flow leaves its mouth and enters slower-moving or stagnant water
Jerezo Crater : a crater on Mars that contains a fan-delta deposit rich in clays
Mineralogy : the scientific study of minerals
Litho Chemistry : the scientific study of the composition, structure, properties, and reactions of stone and mineral
Raman : a light scattering technique
Luminescence : the emission of light by a substance that has not been heated
Fine-Scale Imaging : the enlargement of an image to observe the finer details
Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator : uses heat from the natural decay of plutonium-238, a radioactive isotope, to generate electricity
Curiosity : a Mars rover designed to explore Mars’s Gale Crater (launched: November 26, 2011; landed: August 6, 2012)
Images:
Visit this link for some images that Perseverance has taken on Mars so far: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/
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