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A year of firsts for the Perseverance rover on Mars VIDEO

2022-02-19T09:32:20.945Z


The Perseverance laboratory rover celebrates its first year on Mars: since February 18, 2021 it has traveled three kilometers and set two records, witnessed the first flight of a drone-helicopter on the planet and collected the first six rocks destined to be brought to Earth . After having explored the Jezero crater area for months, it is now rapidly moving towards the delta of an ancient river, one of the most interesting sites for the search for any ancient traces of life (ANSA)


The Perseverance laboratory rover celebrates its first year on Mars: since February 18, 2021 it has traveled three kilometers and set two records, witnessed the first flight of a drone-helicopter on the planet and collected the first six rocks destined to be brought to Earth .

After months of exploring the Jezero crater area, it is now rapidly moving towards the delta of an ancient river, one of the most interesting sites for looking for any ancient traces of life.

Having landed on the surface of the red planet on February 18 last year after a journey of months, the Martian rover of NASA the size of a small SUV and costing 2.7 billion dollars has completed many fundamental activities in just 12 months to improve knowledge of the history of the planet.



One of the main discoveries came from the analysis of the ground of the Jezero crater which, unlike what geologists believed, is mainly made up of rocks of igneous origin, that is, they are the result of the cooling that occurred billions of years ago of molten rock.

Rocks that have also been collected and inserted into special sample tubes that in the future will be brought back to Earth by a mission under development by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Despite the first difficulties, the rover managed to collect and seal the first 6 samples that will then return to Earth.


The area around the Martian hill called Snta Cruz, which the Perseverance rover will return to visit in late February (source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS)

Perseverance also brought with it the first Martian 'helicopter', a drone that has flown several times in the planet's rarefied atmosphere, covering 3,800 meters and allowing you to experience flight to another planet for the first time.

Now the rover has entered a new phase of the mission: the study of the mouth of an ancient river.

After having explored in detail the region of the descent site, he is in fact moving very quickly towards the delta of an ancient river, which he will reach in at least a month, where he will be able to devote himself to the search for any ancient traces of life forms.

“The samples of the delta will be spectacular - commented the geobiologist Tanja Bosak of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - I really can't wait!”.

Source: ansa

All tech articles on 2022-02-19

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