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30th Jul 2020

NASA officially launches new Mars rover to search for signs of alien life

Rudi Kinsella

aliens mars

After a successful launch today, the rover will not land on Mars until February of next year.

NASA has successfully launched its new Perseverance rover to Mars.

The aim of the Perseverance rover is to search for any signs of alien life on Mars.

As well as that, the Perseverance rover is also gaining information ahead of a potential manned mission to put the first humans on the red planet in the future.

It is expected that the rover will land on Mars on 18 February next year.

The greatest concern attached to this mission is that the rover will be destroyed upon arrival on Mars.

Radio transmissions from Mars take approximately 10 minutes to reach Earth so by the time NASA find out that Perseverance has entered the atmosphere, it will have either landed safely or been destroyed.

The majority of attempts to land on Mars have resulted in crafts being destroyed, due to a number of factors including heat, boulders, cliffs, and sand dunes, among other things that can go wrong.

The latest update from NASA was a positive one, with the signal currently being described as strong.

Jim Bridenstine from NASA said: “We are working to configure the ground stations to match the strength of the spacecraft signal. This scenario is one we’ve worked through in the past with other missions.”

Regular updates can be found here.

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Topics:

Aliens,Mars,NASA