Perseverance rover
Perseverance is a NASA rover exploring Jezero crater on Mars since 2021 and collecting rock samples.
Perseverance is a car-sized NASA rover that landed in Jezero crater on Mars on 18 February 2021. Jezero is about 45 kilometres across and once held a lake fed by a river, which left a fan-shaped delta of sediments. That makes it a promising place to look for signs of ancient life.
The rover carries cameras, lasers that zap rocks to read their chemistry, ground-penetrating radar and a drill that cuts cores about the size of a piece of chalk. It seals these cores in tubes for possible return to Earth. It also carried Ingenuity, a small helicopter that made 72 flights before its rotor was damaged in 2024.
Perseverance found that the crater floor is made of igneous rocks altered by water, and its samples include sediments, igneous rocks and atmosphere. In 2024 it found a rock nicknamed Cheyava Falls with intriguing features that scientists are still investigating.
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Level: Explorer Ages 10 and up