Category Archives: Mars

This illustration depicts NASAs Perseverance rover operating on the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA

The first set of middle-schoolers in the agencys Youve Got Perseverance! campaign was honored with a message from the Red Planet and a chat with the rover team at JPL.

A group of 20 young students who have shown the character trait that NASAs Perseverance rover is named for received messages of encouragement directly from that six-wheeled scientist on Mars.

Nominated by educators and community leaders from across the country, the cohort is the first group in the agencys Youve Got Perseverance! awards, which honor U.S. students in sixth through eighth grade who have shown that nothing will deter them from their educational journey.

Twenty students along with their parents, teachers, and classmates met virtually with Mars rover team members at JPL, where they received personalized messages beamed from NASAs Perseverance rover as part of the Youve Got Perseverance campaign. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

On a February 15 video conferencing call, the students got to see the rover team working in a control room at the agencys Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California as Perseverance Surface Mission Manager Jessica Samuels walked them virtually through the facility. In the 60-minute program, students got to ask questions of dozens of rover team members and learn how Perseverance used its Seq. Echo capability to send the messages (generated by the team on Earth, then relayed to Mars and back). Samuels introduced a video featuring the individualized text messages the rover had sent to the students from some 200 million miles (320 million kilometers) away. This is the first time students have received personalized messages from a rover on another planet.

Perseverance had this message for Shannon Hayes, an eighth-grader from Lake Worth, Florida: Shannon, you show nothing will stop you if you put your mind to it. Way to go!

Jennifer Trosper, Mars Perseverance project manager, leads rover team members at JPL in a round of applause for students who were honored through the Youve Got Perseverance campaign for overcoming obstacles in pursuit of their educational goals. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Shannon has a genetic condition that makes her medically fragile and prevents her from attending school in person, her teacher said in nominating her for the opportunity. Despite the students severe physical limitations, her work is impeccable and detailed, and shows amazing grasp of concepts. Her maturity and positive attitude are the best I have ever seen, the teacher wrote.

For her part, when it came to the Q&A, Shannon wanted to know about the difficulty of driving the rover in Mars low gravity. Other students had questions about evidence of water on Mars, the types of samples Perseverance has collected, how the rover uses plutonium for power, and how its designed to survive the harsh environment on the Red Planet. Perseverance Project Manager Jennifer Trosper told the kids their questions made her certain they were on a path to success, and she said she teared up reading nomination forms for the students, some of whom have overcome serious obstacles.

I read your stories and I was so inspired, Trosper told the kids, going on to say, That perseverance and grit and determination thats what it takes to succeed.

The program connects students with the rover team at JPL, whose members have faced several challenges during the rovers development, journey to Mars, white-knuckle landing, and mission on the surface all during a global pandemic that has prompted much of the team to work remotely.

Students who have likewise persisted, showing tenacity, self-motivation, and the ability to overcome obstacles in pursuit of their goals, are eligible to be honored by the rover team and NASA.

Candidates must be nominated by an educator or community leader with firsthand knowledge of the students academic improvement through adversity, and a second nominator must validate the submission. After entries are screened to ensure students meet the criteria, selection for participation is made through a lottery.

The Youve Got Perseverance program is continuing through the rest of this school year. Three more nomination windows are planned, including a window thats open now and closes February 28. The next groups awardees will be announced March 24.

More About Perseverance

A key objective for Perseverances mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planets geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASAs Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

Link:

Students With Perseverance Receive Personalized Messages From Mars Courtesy of NASA - SciTechDaily

Electrolysis of water to produce oxygen to breathe on bases on the moon or Mars could be up to 11% less efficient due to their lower gravities compared with the Earth, UK researchers have found. The finding supports the viability of the approach but it highlights the importance of limiting the effects of low gravity in the development of such systems for future missions.

Gravity on the moon and Mars is only 0.16g and 0.37g respectively, compared with the Earths 1g. Scientists knew that electrolysis of water is less efficient at zero-g, owing to oxygen bubbles being less buoyant and collecting around electrodes. However, technical challenges had meant that no one had studied the process at micro-g levels between 0.01g and 1g, and therefore how lunar or Martian gravity would affect oxygen production.

Now, a team led by Mark Symes at the University of Glasgow, UK, have conducted water electrolysis experiments within this range for the first time. They used a centrifuge system on board freefall flights with the help of the European Space Agencys Fly Your Thesis! programme.

The extent of this reduced efficiency at lunar gravity is comparably mild: maybe only 11% or so less efficient, says Symes. That means electrolysis of water could be a viable route to producing oxygen on the moon, at least in terms of efficiency.

The centrifuge system, which included an electrolysis cell, can be spun to simulate gravitational forces anywhere from 1g to 8g. The researchers mounted this system inside Frances Novespaces Zero-G airbus, which flew in parabolic arcs to bring the system and the researchers into zero gravity. The centrifuge was then spun to simulate gravitational forces between 0.01g and 1g.

The results suggest that mitigating the 11% drop in the efficiency of oxygen production under lunar gravity would require around 1% more power to match production on Earth. It is important to know what sort of performance and efficiency can be expected as every watt of power needs to be budgeted for on space missions, says Symes.

The work demonstrates once more that electrolytic oxygen production on the moon and Mars is feasible, says Katharina Brinkert, who studies oxygen production in microgravity at the University of Warwick, UK. However, challenges regarding the required additional energy input due to hindered gas bubble desorption remain.

Symes suggests solutions to overcome the effects of low gravity could include structuring electrodes so that bubbles detach more easily or simply shaking the electrolyser to dislodge bubbles. Our cell is by no means optimised, so more realistic cells definitely need to be built and tested, adds Symes.

Testing and optimising electrolysis systems could now be much quicker and easier thanks to the results that the team obtained. As a benchmark, it means oxygen evolution on the moon or Mars can be predicted without always taking costly and time-consuming parabolic flights. It would just require ground-based high g centrifuge experiments and extrapolating the results to lunar and Martian gravity levels. This is particularly beneficial given the long-term testing requirements for oxygen-evolving systems before their application on the moon and Mars, adds Brinkert.

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Freefall flights test feasibility of making oxygen on the moon and Mars - Chemistry World

So many of us can live the rest of our lives in blissful satisfaction now that Netflix has released Rabbids Invasion: Mission to Mars, a spinoff special of the animated series in which little rubbery rabbit-like aliens gibber nonsense-speak and participate in endless cartoon violence. Theyre indestructible squeak toys that never shut up and constantly smack each other around. And now theyre going to Mars! That these obnoxious creations deserve the feature-length treatment is dubious at best but will they inspire a few laughs, or make us wish they were truly being shot into outer space? Lets find out.

The Gist: Theres this Rabbid who isnt like the other Rabbids. For starters, he has an Amish beard/combover combo, and looks like your ninth-grade earth science teacher. Hes also not an unapologetically raving moron with the IQ of a hammer (a peen hammer of some kind, Id wager). In fact, hes a math maniac and science wiz. And when he learns that big-tech CEO Frank Nebula wants to send Rabbids to Mars their indestructible nature allows them to survive Mars harsh atmosphere, see our bearded protagonist does everything he can to prove hes worthy of the mission. It shouldnt be hard, right? I mean, the other Rabbids couldnt be dumber, unless they were QAnon devotees.

So our guy makes his way to Nebula HQ, where a roomful of Rabbids take part in incessant antics: screaming, trying to eat fireworks, dancing to brainless instrumental electro-disco, making fart noises and watching Sunny Love Beach, a Magnum P.I.-meets-Baywatch TV show that makes Emily in Paris look like The Wire. Beardo earns the trust of a couple lower-rung scientists who name him Scribbles, and, after many false starts, finally get him a seat on the rocket to the Red Planet. Scribbles will be joined by a shrieking baby Rabbid, a Rabbid obsessed with taking selfies and the disco Rabbid in legwarmers and a butthugger speedo. They could be more obnoxious, they could be less. Lets just say their obnoxiousness inspires ambivalence.

Of course, nothing goes according to plan. Antics on the rocket turn into antics on the surface, especially after the Rabbids discover bloblike tri-eyed Martians, who also participate in antics. But, as anyone smarter than a Rabbid suspected, Frank Nebula has an ulterior motive, a nefarious plan-beneath-the-plan that cements his status as the bad guy. Whatd you expect from a big-tech CEO? The selfless non-capitalist pursuit of scientific discovery for the good of all humankind?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Id say Rabbids are outright ripoffs of Minions, but the bulging-eyed noseless little white things predate the bulging-eyed noseless little yellow things by four years. I will say Shaun the Sheep says a lot more while saying nothing than any of these characters, though.

Performance Worth Watching: Kudos to Scribbles for staying true to himself even when he doesnt fit in with others of his ilk. Theres a moment where he pretends to be your run-of-the-mill stumbling-idiot Rabbid, and hes either really bad at being stump-stupid, or a lousy actor.

Memorable Dialogue: Mm mm-mmm? Ba BA ba. this could be Rabbid Shakespeare for all we know

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Well, antics do not make for compelling drama. It takes half the runtime of RI:MtM for the flibbertigibbet to wane before the plot gets in gear and things start happening. Not that six-year-olds will give a crap; flibbertigibbet is their life, and perhaps in the Rabbids random lunacy, young children will see themselves. But hopefully those selves will never try to eat fireworks.

My theory for this special, one that perhaps extends to Rabbids Invasion in general cartoon shorts, video games, etc. is that its creators are actively seeking to convey no message whatsoever. No subtext, no moralizing, no lessons in civic duty a la those self-righteous little shit dogs on Paw Patrol. Maybe Mission to Mars brushes up against satire, of 1980s TV series, of the big-tech CEO as a cartoon villain. But I assert that such things are byproducts of my being older than 11.

Our Call: Rabbids Invasion: Mission to Mars is jabberwocky for jabberwockys sake. If that appeals to you, then STREAM IT after you get off the bus from elementary school.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.

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Stream It Or Skip It: Rabbids Invasion: Mission to Mars on Netflix, a Spinoff Special of the Cartoon Series That Extends the Silliness to Feature...

Editors Vox is a blog from AGUs Publications Department.

The presence and concentration of methane (CH4) in the martian atmosphere is of paramount importance to planetary scientists and exobiologists because it could be the signal of present or past microbial life. Alternatively, it could be related to nonbiological processes including present or past volcanism or hydrothermal activity.

The discrepancy between the CH4 detection from measurements by Curiosity on the surface in Gale Crater and the CH4 non-detection by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) from orbit has led to a vibrant debate in the scientific community. Two recent articles published in AGU journals (Luo et al., 2021 and Videz-Moreiras et al., 2021) start from the premise that both measurements are correct and use innovative approaches to characterize the potential source regions of the CH4 emissions and resulting implications that would reconcile the different data sets. They converge on a surprising result.

Earth-based and orbital observations of methane in the Martian atmosphere have been reported since 1999 and they are at odds since the beginning. They show highly variable and inconsistent methane concentrations, with global averages ranging from 5 to 33 ppbv (Pla-Garca et al., 2019). Over the last years, Curiosity has observed in Gale a background level of ~0.41 ppbv with a few episodic spikes up to ~21 ppbv (Webster et al., 2021). Intriguingly, concurrent TGO observations of the atmosphere in the vicinity of Gale resulted in no detection, with estimated global (planet-average) upper limits as small as 0.02 ppbv (Montmessin et al., 2021).

To pinpoint the possible source areas of CH4 emissions, the study by Videz-Moreiras et al. (2021) uses atmospheric dispersion modeling while Luo et al. (2021) uses back trajectory analysis.

Based on prevailing modeled winds, Videz-Moreiras et al. (2021) map out downstream emission regions by predicting how much methane released at a given area and time can reach Curiosity (Eulerian approach), while Luo et al. (2021) map out upstream emission regions by transporting backwards in time the amount of methane measured by Curiosity (Lagrangian approach).

In both cases, Curiosity measurements provide the ground truth, and the upper limits of TGO measurements provide the boundary condition for the maximum global average CH4 concentration.

The seemingly contradictory observations used as constraints and combined with a rigorous scientific logic lead the authors of the two studies to infer that only very small CH4 emissions coming from a source located in the northwestern rim of Gale Crater, i.e., from very close to the rover, can lead to a detection by Curiosity and non-detection by TGO. The result also excludes globally all other sources of methane as such sources would generate a global background level larger than the upper limit (0.02 ppbv) observed by TGO.

The Martian scientists are therefore left with the following alternative scenarios, all of which have difficulties: (1) Curiosity has landed on or right next to the only CH4 source on the planet, which is extremely unlikely, (2) there is something wrong with the measurements, but this possibility has been investigated in detail and ruled out (Webster et al., 2018, 2021), 3) CH4 lifetime in the Martian atmosphere is for some unknown reason much shorter than predicted by known chemistry, including the possibility of an unknown fast removal mechanism, which should not affect significantly other species, since the known chemistry explains well their behavior. The possible scenarios are nailed down but the mystery thickens.

Germn Martnez (gmartinez@lpi.usra.edu; 0000-0001-5885-236X), Associate Editor, JGR: Planets; Anni Mttnen ( 0000-0002-7326-8492), Editor, JGR: Planets; and David Baratoux ( 0000-0002-1785-5262), Editor, Earth and Space Science

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The Mystery of Methane on Mars Thickens - Eos

A loyal partner of the Futuroscope, Inserm returns for the third time to the Chasseneuil-du-Poitou Park, near Poitiers. After opening a photo exhibition there in 2009, and then helping to design the virus-attack gravity in 2014, the institute this time teamed up with the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes) to imagine the Objectif Mars gravity, which was launched in June 2020.

Inserm has set out a fun trail overlooking the parks first roller coaster ride and very innovative. For fun of course but with the ambition to travel to Mars! The new attraction collides from the start: it appears to be down at the end of the park, but some of the solid outer bars, slightly sprawling and visible from afar, are interesting. With its 20 million investment, the largest to date for a Futuroscope, this roller coaster marks the beginning of a new era, highly immersive, and even more sensual. Screams of carriage escape partly permeate the waiting outside, as well as pre-boarding. This is where Inserm comes in.

Before embarking on a three-minute rail ride which is the norm in the park follow the handrails of a science course. Across the panels that line it, the visitor gathers a wealth of information, both amusing and incongruous, allowing to fix some solid knowledge about the space. Why do we age faster outside the atmosphere? Can you walk around Mars in a T-shirt? Covid-19 obliges, some trials planned, based on small manipulations, temporarily inaccessible. The fact remains that settling in the rickety seat of the astronaut, in the rocket before takeoff, sets the tone towards Mars, the rest will be minimal. Finally, the boarding platform shows the flow of passengers from very high; Nothing like it to raise the pressure a bit.

Every hour, about 1,000 people are propelled at 55 km/h (more than enough!) in small spinning carts that rush down the roller coaster. This means that the pace is continuous. The ride has a few surprises in store: At its most intense moment, youll experience solar flares, encounter strong magnetic fields, and then pick up speed, until an absolutely stunning finish. When you think youve done the job, the attraction suddenly loses height We wont say more than that. If the buggies were really inspired by the original NASA training equipment, the experience remains affordable: they heat up, then they vibrate. In short, a captivating experience that combines science and relaxation. Thanks to Inserm, you might be able to answer this thorny question: Will you hear screeching on Mars, too?

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Objective Mars: Inserm, from science to health - Vaughan Today

As the Shuttle lifts off Saturday with its first-ever crop of chickpea plants, we may be thinking: Why dont we do everything we can to save this planet, rather than worry about whether its possible to grow chickpeas in space? To live more sustainably, here on Earth, skip the ham sandwich and instead grab a tub of hummus and veggies.

If we want to elongate life on our planet, switch out the animal protein for plant protein like legumes, and chickpeas make a great snack and salad staple.

For the sake oflearning more aboutfood systemson this planet, scientists and astronauts are sending chickpea plants into spaceas researchersare hoping to find out more about how to grow plants more efficiently here on Earth. Space gives us a unique opportunity to do that.

"As climate change continues and Earth's population increases we will need to find a way to grow more using fewer resources.Plant control is a promising way forward. By controlling the plants we can tell them to grow faster or slower depending on the demand and available resources," says lead researcher on project Space Hummus Yonatan Winetraub, an instructor at Stanford University who holds a Ph.D. in biophysics.

"Space amplifies these issues, as we have very few resources available to grow plants in orbit. If we can grow plants on the moon, we can definitely help world hunger."

A mini greenhouse is ready for blastoff:Yonatan Winetraub (below) holdsa mini greenhouse that is heading to the International Space Stationwhere astronauts will grow chickpeas in zero-gravityin what's been dubbed, Project "Space Hummus."

Researchers With Project 'Space Hummus' Send A Mini Greenhouse To The International Space Station

Chickpeas going to space is a new frontier. Think of the idea of eating hummuson your moonwalk.

When Don't Look Up was the movie of the month, everyone was trying to talk about the ending without giving it away. Spoiler alert: A small group makes it to Mars and finds a veritable garden of Eden. They intend to "start over" there, with new plants and species.

In reality, there is little life on Mars, and its hard to fathom growing anything, so this week, a group of scientists will send chickpeas into space on the shuttle,on the cargo mission bound for the International Space Station. The question they are seeking to answer: Can you grow chickpeas, and other essential plant-based foods and proteins, without Mother Nature's own sunshine, earth, and atmosphere?

And if any of us live long enough to visit Mars, what will be on the menu, other than astronaut food? And once that runs out, will it be possible to grow, say, a garden salad, or crudites with a side of hummus?

This is not the first time that vegetables and plants have been attempted to be grown in outer space, or for that matter in simulations of lunar and Martian soil. For one thing, Matt Damon did a pretty amazing job of fictionally growing potatoes from spuds while stranded in his Mars module in the movie, The Martian, keeping himself alive for months by eating the offspring crops of 12 potatoes, until he could fix his spaceship and get back to Earth.

The first known plants to be grown in Martian soil were simulations, from rocks harvested in the Mojave Desert. (In the movie, Matt Damon uses soil made from his own feces.) In reality, neither desert soil nor self-fertilized soil will be used.

Then in 2014, German astronauts grew lettuce and a few other salad crops in highly controlled environments in space, watered by purified urine, which it turns out is a nifty way to re-introduce nitrates to the soil.

These chickpeas are being grown in a nutrition gel specifically designed for chickpeas. There is confidence among the scientific community that the plants will grow, based on light and soil, moisture, and oxygen in their controlled environment. But in a zero-gravity environment, will the plants grow up to the light? Gravity plays a role in the growth of vegetables. (That is why fiber exists, to help the plants stand and reach for the light.)

The other important question is will it act the same way without gravity? The other question the researchers want to answer is: How do you control the growth of the plants once they get them going since you want to make sure they don't use up all your oxygen or resources once they take hold. So what happens if it is too successful? Can you shut it off?

Success is affirming that chickpeas can be a viable product grown on Mars or in space, that can be started and stopped at will by scientists and future generations of hummus lovers, said a spokesperson close to the project. The goal is to maximize productivity and allow efficient management of resources on future space colonies on the moon and Mars.

Sabra, the hummus company is as excited as any chickpea lover that this is happening. If you are as amped as they are, you can get in on the action by trying to win a limited-edition T-shirt that they are giving away co-created with @haveanicedayy_. So, if you want to win one, and celebrate your love of hummus, chickpeas on Mars, and the epic occasion, head to their social posts to find out how to enter for your chance to win.

So far, scientists have grown nine vegetables in a simulatedMartianor lunar soil: Tomatoes, radishes, peas, garden cress, rocket (greens), radishes, rye, quinoa, chives, and leeks. More importantly, the seeds from some of these plants were able to produce new crops, vital to sustaining life on our planet. The only chance humans have of sustainable living is to figure out how to grow generations of food, long after what they bring in their spaceships run out.

A recent story in the Daily Mail quotes a study that found ninevegetables can successfully grow on Mars Scientists found nine vegetables that can successfully grow on Mars including quinoa, radishes, and tomatoes. Some of the seeds from the crops can be used to grow a new generation of crops.

Back in2016,Wieger Wamelink, a plant ecologist based at Wageningen University, hosted a meal at the New World Hotel in the Netherlands, treating his 50 guests to a dinner of foods that had been grown in a simulation of the Mars atmosphere. The dishes includedpea puree appetizers, potato and nettle soup with rye bread, and radish foam,followed by a carrot sorbet. If these foods can be grown on Mars, then certainly the mighty chickpea can too.

Fast forward to the latest initiative, called the "Red Thumbs" project at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where researchers have now added tomatoes, garlic, spinach, basil, kale, lettuce, rocket, onion, and radishes, according to Science Focus.As with every crop, there have been ups and downs, but kale turned out to grow better on the simulated Martian soil than it does on regular soil. The biggest excitement surrounding the success of barley and hops, since the students hoped to be able to growMartian beer!

Other crops struggled, such as the much-needed and calorie-dense potatoes. It turns out potatoes prefer more loose, uncompacted soil and failed to grow as the simulant soils became heavy and impenetrable when watered, which led to the potatoes being choked out.

This Out-of-This World hummus recipe is for your guests as your watch the shuttle take off on Saturday, with the precious cargo of baby chickpea plants on board. Make it any day.

Tomato Hummus on Flatbread

Sabra is giving away free t-shirts

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Can You Grow Chickpeas on Mars? Plants Go to Space to Find Out - The Beet

A snap taken by NASAs Curiosity rover shows a bizarre rock that could be evidence Mars was once home to water but the scientific discovery has been quickly mocked on Twitter for looking like a dildo.

Freelance space expert Paul Scott Anderson uploaded a picture of the Martian geology find to the site to trigger scientific discussion.

But the rock was ridiculed on Twitter by people who said it looked like a sex toy.

One user joked: I recognize that its a Martian female pleasure device must have been dropped.

Whilst another labelled it as a Martian pleasure stimulator device.

But not everyone on the platform agreed with its explicit look-a-like and some reckoned it actually resembled a pair of alien high-heeled shoes.

One person commented: A Martian shoehorn! Now at least we know the shape of their foot whilst another claimed: Thats an alien high heel.

But the real reason for the rocks smooth shape could be much more exciting, boffins say.

It could be down to the planet once housing water and having huge crater lakes billions of years ago.

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The rock could have been formed by water spilling over from the lakes to carve the huge valleys that remain on the surface today.

But even with all the discussion surrounding alien dildos and high-heeled shoes, the replies to the tweet got weirder still as a company claimed they owned the image of the rock as an NFT.

A letter sent to Anderson after his post claims they have reserved all rights to the rock and says he should delete the picture even though it was made publicly available by NASA.

Last month, claims that Mars houses alien life were boosted when a UFO conspiracy theorist spotted an alien figure watching over the Mars rover.

Self-professed expert Scott C. Waring said the sight was "100% proof of intelligent life" after catching a glimpse of the foot-tall being with a pink body from his home in Taiwan.

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Excited space boffins think they've found 'female pleasure device' on Mars - Daily Star

A year ago, NASAs Perseverance rover was accelerating to a collision with Mars, nearing its destination after a 290-million-mile, seven-month journey from Earth.

On Feb. 18 last year, the spacecraft carrying the rover pierced the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour. In just seven minutes what NASA engineers call seven minutes of terror it had to pull off a series of maneuvers to place Perseverance gently on the surface.

Given the minutes of delay for radio communications to crisscross the solar system, the people in mission control at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California were merely spectators that day. If anything had gone wrong, they would not have had any time to attempt a fix, and the $2.7 billion mission, to search for evidence that something once lived on the red planet, would have ended in a newly excavated crater.

But Perseverance performed perfectly, sending home exhilarating video footage as it landed. And NASA added to its collection of robots exploring Mars.

The vehicle itself is just doing phenomenally well, Jennifer Trosper, the project manager for Perseverance, said.

Twelve months later, Perseverance is nestled within a 28-mile-wide crater known as Jezero. From the topography, it is evident that more than three billion years ago, Jezero was a body of water roughly the size of Lake Tahoe, with rivers flowing in from the west and out to the east.

One of the first things Perseverance did was deploy Ingenuity, a small robotic helicopter and the first such flying machine to take off on another planet. Perseverance also demonstrated a technology for generating oxygen that will be crucial whenever astronauts finally make it to Mars.

The rover then set off on a diversion from the original exploration plans, to study the floor of the crater it landed in. The rocks there turned out not to be what scientists were expecting. It ran into trouble a couple of times when it tried to collect cores of rock cylinders about the size of sticks of chalk that are eventually to be brought back to Earth by a future mission. Engineers were able to solve the problems and most everything is going well.

Its been a very exciting year, exhausting at times, said Joel Hurowitz, a professor of geosciences at Stony Brook University in New York who is a member of the missions science team. The pace of work has been pretty incredible.

After months of scrutinizing the crater floor, the mission team is now preparing to head for the main scientific event: investigating a dried-up river delta along the west rim of Jezero.

That is where scientists expect to find sedimentary rocks that are most likely to contain blockbuster discoveries, maybe even signs of ancient Martian life if any ancient life ever existed on Mars.

Deltas are, at least on Earth, habitable environments, said Amy Williams, a professor of geology at the University of Florida and a member of the Perseverance science team. Theres water. Theres active sediment being transported from a river into a lake.

Such sediments can capture and preserve carbon-based molecules that are associated with life. Thats an excellent place to look for organic carbon, Dr. Williams said. So hopefully, organic carbon thats indigenous to Mars is concentrated in those layers.

Perseverance landed not much more than a mile from the delta. Even at a distance, the rovers eagle-eyed camera could make out the expected sedimentary layers. There were also boulders, some as large as cars, sitting on the delta, rocks that were washed into the crater.

This all tells a fascinating story, said Jim Bell, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University.

The data confirm that what orbital images suggested was a river delta is indeed that and that the history of water here was complex. The boulders, which almost certainly came from the surrounding highlands, point to episodes of violent flooding at Jezero.

It wasnt just slow, gentle deposition of fine grained silt and sand and mud, said Dr. Bell, who serves as principal investigator for the sophisticated cameras mounted on Perseverances mast.

Mission managers had originally planned to head directly to the delta from the landing site. But the rover set down in a spot where the direct route was blocked by sand dunes that it could not cross.

The geological formations to the south intrigued them.

We landed in a surprising location, and made the best of it, said Kenneth Farley, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology who serves as the project scientist leading the research.

Because Jezero is a crater that was once a lake, the expectation was that its bottom would be rocks that formed out of the sediments that settled to the bottom.

But at first glance, the lack of layers meant they did not look obviously sedimentary, said Kathryn Stack Morgan of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the deputy project scientist. At the same time, nothing clearly suggested they were volcanic in origin, either.

Its really turned into a detective story sort of about why this region is one of the most geologically unusual in the planet, said Nicholas Tosca, a professor of mineralogy and petrology at the University of Cambridge in England and a member of the science team.

As the scientists and engineers contemplated whether to circle around to the north or to the south, the team that built a robotic helicopter named Ingenuity got to try out their creation.

The helicopter was a late addition to the mission, meant as a proof-of-concept for flying through the thin air of Mars.

On April 18 last year, Ingenuity rose to a height of 10 feet, hovered for 30 seconds, and then descended back to the ground. The flight lasted 39.1 seconds.

Over the following weeks, Ingenuity made four more flights of increasing time, speed and velocity.

That helped avoid wasting time driving to unexceptional rocks that had looked potentially interesting in images taken from orbit.

We sent the helicopter and saw the images, and it looked very similar to where we were, Ms. Trosper said. And so we chose not to drive.

The helicopter continues to fly. It just completed its 19th flight, and it remains in good condition. The batteries are still holding a charge. The helicopter has shown it can fly in the colder, thinner air of the winter months. It was able to shake off most of the dust that fell on it during a dust storm in January.

Everythings looking green across the board, said Theodore Tzanetos, who leads the Ingenuity team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In the exploration of the rocks to the south of the landing site, scientists solved some of their secrets when the rover used its drill to grind shallow holes in a couple of them.

Oh wow, these look volcanic, Dr. Stack Morgan said, remembering her reaction. Exactly what youd expect for a basaltic lava flow.

The tools that Perseverance carries to study the ingredients of Martian rocks can take measurements pinpointed on bits of rock as small as a grain of sand. And cameras on the robotic arm can take close-up pictures.

Those observations revealed large grains of olivine, an igneous mineral that can accumulate at the bottom of a large lava flow. Later fractures emerged between the olivine grains that were filled with carbonates, a mineral that forms through interactions with water.

The thinking now is that the Jezero crater floor is the same olivine-rich volcanic rock that orbiting spacecraft have observed in the region. It might have formed before the crater filled with water.

Sediments from the lake probably did cover the rock, with water percolating through the sediments to fill the fractures with carbonate. Then, slowly, over a few billion years, winds blew the sediments away.

That the wispy air on Mars could erode so much rock is hard for geologists on Earth to wrap their minds around.

You dont find landscapes that are even close to that on Earth, Dr. Farley said.

The most troublesome moments during the first year have occurred during the collection of rock samples. For decades, planetary scientists have dreamed that pieces of Mars could be brought to Earth, where they could study them with state-of-the-art instruments in laboratories.

Perseverance is the first step in turning that dream into reality by drilling cores of rock and sealing them in tubes. The rover, however, has no means to get the rock samples off Mars and back to Earth; that awaits another mission known as Mars Sample Return, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency.

During the development of Perseverances drill, engineers tested it with a wide variety of Earth rocks. But then the very first rock on Mars that Perseverance tried to drill turned out to be unlike all of the Earth rocks.

The rock in essence turned to dust during the drilling and slid out of the tube. After several successes, another drilling attempt ran into problems. Pebbles fell out of the tube in an inconvenient part of the rover the carousel where the drilling bits are stored and that required weeks of troubleshooting to clean away the debris.

That was exciting, not necessarily in the best way, Dr. Stack Morgan said. The rest of our exploration has gone really well.

Perseverance will at some point drop off some of its rock samples for a rover on the Mars Sample Return mission to pick up. That is to prevent the nightmare scenario that Perseverance dies and there is no way to extricate the rocks it is carrying.

The top speed of Perseverance is the same as that of Curiosity, the rover NASA landed in another crater in 2012. But improved self-driving software means it can cover longer distances in a single drive. To get to the delta, Perseverance needs to retrace its path to the landing site and then take a route around the sand dunes to the north.

It could arrive at the delta by late May or early June. Ingenuity will try to stay ahead of Perseverance.

The helicopter flies faster than the rover can drive, but after each flight, its solar panels have to soak up several days of sunshine to recharge the batteries. Perseverance, powered by the heat from a hunk of plutonium, can drive day after day after day.

The helicopter, however, might be able to take a shortcut across the sand dunes.

Were planning to get to the delta, Mr. Tzanetos said. And were discussing what happens beyond the river delta.

But, he added that every day could be the last for Ingenuity, which was designed to last only a month. You hope that youre lucky enough to keep flying, he said, and were going to keep that streak going for as long as we can.

Once Perseverance gets to the delta, the most electrifying discovery would be images of what looked to be microscopic fossils. In that case, we have to start asking whether some globs of organic matter are arranged in a shape that outlines a cell, said Tanja Bosak, a geobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It is unlikely Perseverance will see anything that is unequivocally a remnant of a living organism. That is why it is crucial for the rocks to be brought to Earth for closer examination.

Dr. Bosak does not have a strong opinion on whether there was ever life on Mars.

We are really trying to peer into the time where we have very little knowledge, she said. We have no idea when chemical processes came together to form the first cell. And so we may be looking at something that was just learning to be life.

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On Mars, a NASA Rover and Helicopters Year of Surprise and Discovery - The New York Times

NASAs Perseverance rover was not the only new arrival at Mars 12 months ago.

Two other spacecraft also made the trip from Earth to Mars during the last window when the two planets lined up, helping each of their countries achieve debuts in interplanetary exploration.

One countrys exploration is not a surprise. China is building a portfolio of impressive space missions, including robotic missions to the moon and a space station under construction in Earth orbit. In 2021, its Tianwen-1 mission arrived at Mars with three parts: an orbiter, a lander and a rover named Zhurong.

Months after the mission arrived in Mars orbit, the lander, carrying Zhurong, set down in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a volcanic plain. That made China only the second country to pull off a lasting mission on the surface of the red planet. Chinese scientists are scheduled to present some of their early scientific results next month at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Woodlands, Texas.

The other country was an unexpected newcomer: the United Arab Emirates. Without much experience in spaceflight, it collaborated with engineers at the University of Colorados Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics to build Hope, a spacecraft about the size of a small car.

Hope is smaller in size and ambition than Perseverance or Tianwen-1, but building it provided on-the-job training for budding Emirati engineers and scientists who worked side-by-side with their American counterparts in Boulder, Colo.

Hope entered orbit around Mars and continues looping around the planet, making measurements of the atmosphere. It has made some unexpected findings, particularly the quantity of oxygen in the upper atmosphere.

When we were comparing it to the models, it was around 50 percent higher than were expected, said Hessa al-Matroushi, the missions science lead. So that was surprising.

Hopes instruments found structures in the upper atmosphere with higher concentrations of oxygen. Scientists are trying to figure out the significance of the surprise.

Another spacecraft, the ExoMars 2022 mission, a collaboration between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, is planned for launch to Mars this year. It was originally scheduled for launch in 2020, but technical problems and the pandemic the mission was postponed. The next opportunity for launch opens in late September.

ExoMars is carrying a rover named Rosalind Franklin, which is to look for indications of past life in Oxia Planum, a 120-mile-wide plain near the equator that possesses clay-rich minerals.

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NASA Isnt the Only Space Program Celebrating a Year at Mars - The New York Times

NASA's Curiosity rover has left plenty of marks on Mars over the past nine-plus years, and the Red Planet is returning the favor.

The rugged landscape inside Mars' Gale Crater has taken some substantial bites out of Curiosity's six aluminum wheels, as CNET recently pointed out. The damage looks dramatic, but don't panic; Curiosity should be able to keep trundling along for a while yet.

"The current predicted odometry remaining is expected to be sufficient to support Curiosity throughout the remainder of the mission," Andrew Good, a spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages Curiosity's mission, told Space.com via email.

The gouges and gashes on the rover's wheels "always look nastier than they are," Good added.

Related: Amazing Mars photos by NASA's Curiosity rover

The car-sized Curiosity landed on Gale's floor in August 2012, on a mission to determine if the area could ever have supported microbial life. The robot soon answered that question, finding that Gale hosted a potentially habitable lake-and-stream system in the ancient past that likely persisted for millions of years at a time.

Since September 2014, Curiosity has been climbing the flanks of Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the sky from Gale's center. The rover is reading the rock layers as it goes, searching for clues about Mars' long-ago shift from a relatively warm and wet world to the frigid desert planet we know today.

Curiosity has traveled a total of 16.86 miles (27.14 km) on Mars to date, many of them across rugged, rocky terrain. The rover's wheels started showing signs of wear and tear relatively early in the mission, spurring its handlers to take some mitigation measures picking routes across gentler terrain when possible, for example, and eventually beaming up "traction control" software that adjusts Curiosity's speed depending on the type of ground it's traversing.

Those measures seem to have worked, Good said, noting that the mission team recently started snapping wheel-inspection imagery every 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) of ground traveled rather than every 1,650 feet (500 m), as had been the norm.

Curiosity's wheel-wear experiences helped shape the design of NASA's next Mars rover, Perseverance, which touched down on the floor of Jezero Crater in February 2021. For example, Perseverance's wheels are slightly larger in diameter and have twice as many treads as those of Curiosity.

In addition, the life-hunting, sample-caching Perseverance's treads are gently curved instead of chevron-shaped. And they don't spell out "JPL" in Morse code on the red dirt as the rover drives, like those of Curiosity were designed to do.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.

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Rugged Mars has taken big bites out of the Curiosity rover's wheels (photos) - Space.com