Sophisticated equipment on the Perseverance rover is helping answer some of the many questions researchers have about Mars’ geology over time.
Perseverance took a selfie next to its biggest accomplishment yet – the two small drill holes where the rover took samples of Martian rocks.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Perseverance and its helicopter sidekick, Ingenuity, have been on Mars for nearly nine months. The duo have taken rock samples, performed first flights and taken images of the delta in Jezero Crater.
In a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., engineers observed the first driving test for the Mars rover, Perseverance. Perseverance will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize Mars’ climate and geology, and collect samples for a future return to Earth.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Martian meteorites allow scientists here on Earth to decode that planet’s geology, more than a decade before the first missions are scheduled to bring rocks back home from Mars.