Perseverance Mars Rover

No doubt you saw in the news that a new rover landed on Mars this week. The Perseverance Rover successfully touched down in Jezero crater on Feb 18 at 3:55 PM EST. 

Some highlights from the live stream:  

• Seeing Dr Swati Mohan, a woman of East Indian descent, as the Guidance and Controls Operations Lead and main narrator of the landing procedures - she announced "Touchdown is confirmed" 

• Learning more about the mini-helicopter, Ingenuity 

• Seeing a life size model of the rover 

• Meeting the two high school students who’s essays were selected from over 28,000 submissions - to name Perseverance and Ingenuity
  
  A quote from the winning essay by Alex Mather:
  
  “Curiosity. InSight. Spirit. Opportunity. If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. We are always curious, and seek opportunity. We have the spirit and insight to explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond. But, if rovers are to be the qualities of us as a race, we missed the most important thing. Perseverance. We as humans evolved as creatures who could learn to adapt to any situation, no matter how harsh. We are a species of explorers, and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere. We, not as a nation but as humans, will not give up. The human race will always persevere into the future.”

The landing was especially cool as the rover partially guided itself to a safe spot within the Jezero Crater using the very complicated but successful Skycrane maneuver.  

One of Perseverance’s main goals is to search for signs of ancient microbial life which is why the landing site of Jerzero crater was selected. It is thought to have been once flooded by water at a time when there was continual surface runoff. It also contains a delta which contains clay which might have preserved signs of early life.