America's rover, "Perseverance," will land on Mars tomorrow.
Its predecessor, "Curiosity," landed on the planet in 2012 with the goal of determining whether Mars could ever have supported life, and the answer was yes. The main purpose of Perseverance is to actually look for evidence of ancient life.
It will land in Jezero Crater and spend two years exploring it. Billions of years ago this was the site of a river delta and a lake, so it will look for signs of organic compounds and fossils of microbial life. Perseverance will also practice turning the air's carbon dioxide into oxygen, a potentially important skill for future human missions.
New technology will enable Perseverance to pick a relatively safe landing site. It's in the video below.
(cont'd tomorrow)
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