At around 8.14pm GMT, humanity will hopefully once again land a rover on the surface of Mars. At present Perseverance is still hundreds of thousands of miles away from the red planet, but at its current blisteringly fast speed of 47,539 mph it’ll be arriving very soon indeed. This is a hugely exciting step in the field of space exploration, taking us ever closer to getting the first human colony on an alien planet. That being said, how is Perseverance different from previous space missions and why should people be excited? Well I’m glad you asked.
Photoshoots
There are more cameras packed onto this rover than any before it. Along with a microphone, these cameras are going to allow Perseverance to record everything from falling through the planet’s thin atmosphere to its surroundings when it’s safely down on the ground. These images and videos are going to give us the clearest, most detailed view of Mars we will have ever seen. Scientists will be able to clearly examine the natural landscape while ordinary people like me get to gawk at the alien planet. These pictures are going to be streamed live during the approach and landing of the rover, so the entire world can how far science and engineering has taken us.
Powered Flight
Unlike when the Curiosity rover sang itself a lonely Happy Birthday, Perseverance will have some company on its adventures. The Mars Helicopter, known as Ingenuity, has hitched a ride on Perseverance’s stomach for the entire journey to the planet. When the rover successfully lands, Ingenuity will disconnect and attempt to hover for a few seconds. While it may not sound hugely exciting at first, this would be a huge milestone. Powered flight on Earth is simpler than on Mars thanks to our atmosphere being significantly more dense. Being able to test and construct machines that can fly in the thinner atmosphere of Mars would be incredible, and could revolutionise the types of rover we send in the future. Rather than crawling across the planets surface, drones might be able to zip through the sky and record far more detail in far less time.
Alien Life
The main purpose of Perseverance lies in the study of astrobiology. In short, this means it’s searching for aliens. While we’re unlikely to find any green humanoids with bulbous heads, there is a chance that we may find traces of microbial life that lived on the planet billions of years ago. Perseverance will collect and store samples of rock that seem good contenders for containing this evidence, and will send those samples back to Earth with a future expedition for further study. Not only is this the first instance of primitive mining in space that includes transferring it back home in a round trip, but could be key to discovering extraterrestrial life. If tiny organisms lived on Mars all that time ago, it will prove that Earth is not the only planet that has developed life. If it could have happened on somewhere as close as Mars, it implies that there could be thousands of other planets in the galaxy that are capable of supporting and developing life forms. Definitive proof of alien life would finally be discovered, and humanity would no longer be alone in the universe.
I hope this helped get you as excited as I am. While Perseverance may look like a strange remote controlled car, it is cutting edge and has been designed by some of the greatest minds alive today. There is a chance that this whole endeavour ends in the rover crashing to the planets surface in a ball of fire and twisted metal, but I remain hopeful that we will see things today that have never been seen before. The time for exploring space is slowly drawing near, and I cannot wait until it arrives.
All images taken from NASA’s official Mars 2020 page.
