NASA Perseverance Mars Rover Landing SUCCESS! Pic Received from Surface
[2021-02-18 21:02:56 UTC; UPDATE: Landing successful! Picture received from the surface!]
7 Minutes to Mars: NASA's Perseverance Rover Attempts Most Dangerous Landing YetEratosthenes writes:
Video at NASA on YouTube on the Perseverance landing.
Helicopter!!
NASA's Perseverance Rover Prepares for Mars Landingupstart writes in with an IRC submission:
NASA's Perseverance rover prepares for Mars landing:
If NASA successfully lands its fifth rover on Mars on Thursday, it will have delivered the Red Planet's first microphones, its first aircraft, more cameras than ever before and a life-detecting duo known as SHERLOC and WATSON.
The Perseverance rover will also hopefully complete the initial step in an estimated 10-year effort to return samples of Martian rock back to Earth-bound researchers.
The rover carries a drill that can collect around 40 core samples, some 30 of which will be returned to Earth in the 2031 timeframe - though that plan could change.
With luck, however, scientists won't have to wait a decade for evidence of early Martian life.
Perseverance has a laser spectrometer on board that will be able to examine rocks using different wavelengths of energy.
Attached to the end of Perseverance's robotic arm, SHERLOC will scan rocks with deep-ultraviolet light to classify the organic materials, minerals and chemicals on their surfaces. The acronym stands for Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals.
WATSON, the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering, will also take microscopic images of the rocks.
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