Perseverance – A Step to Life on Mars?

Outer space seems like a concept so distant to humans that it would be reasonable to assume that we do not know much about it. Although that may have been true in the past, and is true to some extent today, our curiosity has led us to learn about the void our planet floats in even more than the depths of the ocean of our own planet. Our expeditions to Mars only brings us closer to finding out if there is something more to having life on other planets.

Humans, primarily NASA, have made many attempts to establish human presence on our neighbouring planet, if not directly, then through machines and robots that represent us. From Pathfinder in 1997 and Phoenix in 2008 to Curiosity in 2012, we have only gotten more and more information on the red planet.

On the 18th of February, the latest rover to make its journey successfully landed on Mars. Perseverance shows how we, despite the limitations presented by the outbreak of COVID-19, were able to make another impact on Mars’ exploration. Perseverance provided one of our first experiences of direct imagery of Mars from its surface, and in the future, plans to leave samples that will be collected and returned to Earth. These samples will be a big step forward in proving whether life exists outside earth.

When the Earth was forming billions of years ago, Mars was not very different from it. Both planets had a surface which had water on it, and both of them were protected from the sun’s radiation by strong magnetic fields. This has encouraged many scientists to believe that life on Mars may have existed in the past if it does not exist now. Perseverance was fitted with a surveillance drone named Ingenuity, which aims to provide close to ground information of Mars in the near future.

The landing of Perseverance on Mars was also no small accomplishment. The whole landing process was even livestreamed to Earth, but there was a catch. Since the fastest mode of the transfer of information is at the speed of light, there was a 12-minute delay between us here on Earth and the rover on Mars. That means that when we started to receive information on the 7-minute landing process, the rover had already either landed successfully or crash landed on the red planet. We now know that the complex system of parachutes, rope suspension, and an actual jet propulsion pack on the rover had worked successfully and Perseverance landed on Mars on the 18th.

In the coming future, we can only wait to see what the new rover can find on Mars. Will we find evidence that supports the existence of other life forms? Or will we only find news of the crust of Mars being no more than a barren, rocky soil.