NASA Closer to finding life on Mars... if it ever existed...

In the short time since NASA’s Perseverance rover landed in Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, it’s already made history.

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Perseverance has tested out all of its engineering capabilities, driven 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) over rough terrain and taken tens of thousands of photos with its 19 cameras. Of all of these incredible successes, there are three major milestones that we’re particularly excited about: collecting the first rock core samples, flying the Ingenuity helicopter and publishing our first scientific results about the Jezero Crater delta.

One of Perseverance’s primary objectives is to use its sample caching system to extract small rock cores – roughly the size of dry-erase markers – and seal them in special sample tubes. A future mission will then pick them up and bring them on a long, interplanetary journey back to Earth.

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Confirming that there was a lake in Jezero Crater is the first major science result of the mission. In the coming year, Perseverance will drive up to the top of the delta, studying the rock layers in microscopic detail along the way and collecting many samples. When those samples eventually make their way to Earth, we will learn if they contain signs of microbial life that may once have thrived in this ancient lake on Mars.