First Images From NASA's Perseverance Rover Show One Strange Phenomena

The newest Martian, NASA’s Perseverance, is exploring the red planet’s surface as we speak. Launched in July 2020, the rover finally landed the following February and is ready to uncover Mars' greatest mysteries, from ancient water to possible alien life. We knew that Mars would be a strange place to explore but wennever expected Perseverance to find anything like this. 

About the Mission

Perseverance landed on Mars’ surface after a journey of 165.74 million miles. Since it’s landed, it has sent back photographs every step of the way, totaling about 7,000 images since it landed. Over the next year, Perseverance will travel along the remains of ancient Martian river deltas searching for life. 

Past Missions

Since the 1960s, humans have sent dozens of spacecraft to study Mars. Early missions were simply flybys, with spacecraft quickly snapping photos as they zoomed past. Viking 1 took the first photo of Mars' surface (below) in 1976. Now, landers and rovers have touched down on Mars’ surface. But don’t be fooled, sending a spacecraft to Mars is hard, and landing it is even harder.  

A Key Expedition

Perseverance really does embody its name. It’s difficult for a spacecraft to land on Mars’ surface, and the rover persevered to land on the planet and to do the impossible. It’s collecting samples from the planet, which will be brought back to Earth via an unprecedented return trip. That has massive implications.

Why Mars?

Out of every other planet in the solar system, Mars is the only one that we’re sure has had water in the past. The planet is also similar to Earth in a lot of ways; they both have a similar size, inclination, structure, and composition. In fact, Mars may have been even more similar to us in the past.