{"id":107407,"date":"2021-02-18T19:22:29","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T19:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=107407"},"modified":"2021-02-18T19:22:29","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T19:22:29","slug":"watch-nasa-rover-streaks-toward-a-landing-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/watch-nasa-rover-streaks-toward-a-landing-on-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"WATCH: NASA rover streaks toward a landing on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA rover streaked toward a landing on Mars on Thursday in the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on the red planet.<\/p>\n

Ground controllers at the space agency\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, settled in nervously for the descent of Perseverance to the surface of Mars, long a deathtrap for incoming spacecraft. It takes a nail-biting 11 1\/2 minutes for a signal that would confirm success to reach Earth.<\/p>\n

The landing of the six-wheeled vehicle would mark the third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China swung into orbit around the planet on successive days last week.<\/p>\n

All three missions lifted off in July to take advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars, traveling some 300 million miles in nearly seven months.<\/p>\n

Perseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, stood to become the ninth spacecraft to successfully land on Mars, every one of them from the U.S., beginning in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

.In this illustration made available by NASA, the Perseverance rover casts off its spacecraft\u2019s cruise stage, minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere. (NASA\/JPL-Caltech via AP)The car-size, plutonium-powered rover was aiming for NASA\u2019s smallest and trickiest target yet: a 5\u2013by-4-mile strip on an ancient river delta full of pits, cliffs and fields of rock. Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, when water still flowed on the planet.<\/p>\n

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Related:<\/strong> Colorado represented on NASA\u2019s latest Mars mission by companies large and small.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Percy, as it is nicknamed, was designed to drill down with its 7-foot arm and collect rock samples that might hold signs of bygone microscopic life. The plan called for three to four dozen chalk-size samples to be sealed in tubes and set aside on Mars to be retrieved by a fetch rover and brought homeward by another rocket ship, with the goal of getting them back to Earth as early as 2031.<\/p>\n

Scientists hope to answer one of the central questions of theology, philosophy and space exploration.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we alone in this sort of vast cosmic desert, just flying through space, or is life much more common? Does it just emerge whenever and wherever the conditions are ripe?\u201d said deputy project scientist Ken Williford. \u201cBig, basic questions, and we don\u2019t know the answers yet. So we\u2019re really on the verge of being able to potentially answer these enormous questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s spacecraft includes a smaller rover that also will be seeking evidence of life — if it makes it safely down from orbit in May or June.<\/p>\n

Perseverance\u2019s descent has been described by NASA as \u201cseven minutes of terror,\u201d in which flight controllers can only watch helplessly. The preprogrammed spacecraft was designed to hit the thin Martian atmosphere at 12,100 mph, then use a parachute to slow it down and a rocket-steered platform known as a sky crane to lower the rover the rest of the way to the surface.<\/p>\n

Mars has proved a treacherous place: In the span of less than three months in 1999, a U.S. spacecraft was destroyed upon entering orbit because engineers had mixed up metric and English units, and an American lander crashed on Mars after its engines cut out prematurely.<\/p>\n

NASA is teaming up with the European Space Agency to bring the rocks home. Perseverance\u2019s mission alone costs nearly $3 billion.<\/p>\n

The only way to confirm — or rule out \u2014 signs of past life is to analyze the samples in the world\u2019s best labs. Instruments small enough to be sent to Mars wouldn\u2019t have the necessary precision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mars sample return project is probably the most challenging thing we\u2019ve ever attempted within NASA,\u201d said planetary science director Lori Glaze, \u201cand we don\u2019t do any of these things alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA rover streaked toward a landing on Mars on Thursday in the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWATCH: NASA rover streaks toward a landing on Mars - Fin2me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/watch-nasa-rover-streaks-toward-a-landing-on-mars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WATCH: NASA rover streaks toward a landing on Mars - Fin2me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA rover streaked toward a landing on Mars on Thursday in the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to [...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/watch-nasa-rover-streaks-toward-a-landing-on-mars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fin2me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-18T19:22:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/cnewsfotoMars_Landing_30740.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/watch-nasa-rover-streaks-toward-a-landing-on-mars\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/watch-nasa-rover-streaks-toward-a-landing-on-mars\/\",\"name\":\"WATCH: NASA rover streaks toward a landing on Mars - 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