Welcome to another exciting episode of Zane's Adventure Zone. I'm your intrepid host, six-year-old Zane, and today we are blasting off to the mysterious red planet to learn all about NASA's newest Mars rover called Perseverance. Perseverance is a car-sized, six-wheeled robotic geologist and astrobiologist that landed on Mars in February 2021. Its main mission is to search for signs of microscopic life that may have existed on Mars billions of years ago. Just imagine!
We have an advanced robot digging around and doing science experiments on another planet, looking for traces of alien fossils and evidence that tiny Martians may once have lived there in the distant past. How cool is that? NASA equipped Perseverance with the latest high-tech tools and instruments to help it explore the surface of Mars. It has lasers to vaporize and analyze rocks from a distance, ground-penetrating radar to look underground, ultraviolet lights to detect organic chemicals.
23 cameras including zoomable high-resolution color cameras, a weather station, and even an ingenious little helicopter sidekick named Ingenuity. NASA packed over seven new scientific instruments and cameras into Perseverance, making it the most advanced, tricked-out Mars rover they have ever sent into space. This rover has everything it needs to make unprecedented discoveries.
You might be wondering why NASA scientists are so keen to find signs of ancient microscopic Martian life. Well, imagine you are an astronaut arriving on Mars in the future. You would definitely want to know if Mars ever had living creatures crawling around on it in the past. Because where there was life existing in the past, there could still be basic lifeforms hiding in isolated niches or underground on Mars now.
And future human visitors or settlers would need to be very careful not to contaminate any Mars microbes with germs accidentally brought from Earth. We have to make sure we don't damage delicate Martian ecosystems. Plus, definitively finding evidence of life existing on a planet besides Earth would be a pivotal, earth-shattering discovery. It would prove that life can arise and develop on other worlds across the galaxy.
under the right conditions and it would help us better understand how life may evolve on exoplanets in distant solar systems. The problem is... Mars today is a freezing cold, radiation-bombed, arid desert. If any basic Martian microbes ever existed billions of years ago when Mars was warmer and wetter, they would surely be long gone by now. So instead, Perseverance will search for microbial fossils or chemical and organic biosignatures in rocks and soil those lifeforms left behind.
NASA chose to send their robotic astrobiologist to Jezero Crater because it's the site of an ancient lake bed. Billions of years ago, when Mars had air and surface water, Jezero Crater may have been home to a lake filled with fresh water and primitive microorganisms. It was selected as the ideal spot for perseverance to hunt for signs of long extinct Martian life. Now, here is where you come in!
As Perseverance rolls around Jezero Crater for at least one Mars year, carefully exploring the terrain, collecting samples and sending back data, NASA needs your help. analyzing all the raw images and science findings it beams back. You could be the one who spots in a photograph the first unambiguous sign of ancient Martian fossils. Or you may notice a strange anomaly in sensor readings that leads to a major discovery.
There are decades worth of images and data to pour through, and NASA wants young science sleuths like you to join the search. Let me tell you more about how you can contribute to Perseverance's mission and become part of the Mars exploration team. The rover has a seven-foot-long robotic arm equipped with a coring drill bit on the end. NASA carefully programs Perseverance to use this drill to bore into the most scientifically compelling and intriguing Martian rocks it encounters.
It then seals these precious geological samples into sterile metal tubes and deposits them in small caches on the surface scattered around Jezero Crater. The ambitious plan is that maybe a decade from now... Future sample return missions will launch and travel to Mars. They will land near the caches, pick up the sample tubes Perseverance left behind, blast off the Martian surface, and return them to Earth for analysis.
But we can't just sit around waiting ten years for those sample tubes. There is so much scientific work we can do right now with all the data Perseverance is sending back. Here is how you can get involved. NASA makes all of Perseverance's raw, unprocessed photos immediately available online. So we can download the images directly from the rover and help analyze what it is seeing and discovering out there millions of miles away on the alien landscape of Mars.
Let's click through some of the latest pics together now. First, I'll bring up this image of the wide Martian landscape. What do you notice in this photo? Do you see any strange patterns or textures in the orange soil and rocks? Notice how it has layers. What do you think stacked those rocky layers over time? Now let's look closer near this outcrop with the drill hole where Perseverance took a sample. See anything special about the color or shape of the rock?
Does it look like it could contain ancient microfossils? Let me know what you observe. Keep peering closely at these images with me. Speak up if you catch anything peculiar or scientifically interesting. Together, we might make an unexpected discovery. We could even help NASA decide the best place for Perseverance to drill its next geology sample, based on what we spot. After the show, here is what you can do to join our Perseverance Watch Mars exploration team.
First, visit the link I'll put in the show notes to bookmark Perseverance's constantly updating photo feed. Check back frequently to see the latest raw images beamed back from Mars. Next, get your astronaut field notebook ready to record any fascinating observations you make. Carefully document the image numbers, locations, lighting, and your detailed descriptions of anything unique you spot.
We can compare our notes next time and forward our most exciting finds to NASA's Perseverance team. Finally, invite all your friends to join the mission. The more eagle-eyed junior explorers we have scrutinizing Perseverance's images, the better chance we have of identifying subtle evidence of past life on Mars. This could end up being an historic, civilization-changing scientific discovery. Just imagine, someday in the future...
Martian rock samples you helped Perseverance locate and collect are analyzed back in the lab on Earth. And inside one of them, scientists discover an unambiguous microscopic fossil of ancient alien bacteria. You could receive major credit and fame for your role in locating that pivotal sample. News headlines would proclaim, Plucky young Mars rover image hunter makes discovery of the century.
How incredibly awesome would that be! Okay adventurers, Perseverance has many miles left to traverse on Mars over the next few years. As it continues its epic journey of exploration across the alien landscape, we'll keep following along closely from here on Earth. Thanks to Perseverance's cutting-edge cameras and instruments, it's like we are riding along right there with the rover on the surface of Mars, millions of miles away.
I can't wait to see what kinds of unexpected discoveries we make together in future episodes following Perseverance's historic mission. For now, it's time log off and start scouring those images NASA is waiting for us to analyze. Happy hunting for alien fossils, everyone. Keep reaching for the stars, and don't forget to tell your friends to join our Mars rover adventure. We'll rendezvous soon for more Perseverance action.
I hope you enjoyed learning all about the Perseverance rover and how you can participate in its exciting mission to uncover secrets of ancient Mars. Tune in next time for another fun Adventure Zone. Until then, cheers, junior explorers. Blast off.