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After the Perseverance rover spent its first three months on Mars getting its bearings and serving as an observation post for the successful Ingenuity helicopter flights, NASA announced the robot has started its primary mission: seeking out past evidence of microbial life — should any have ever existed.
“The time has come: I’m switching from on-scene photographer to science investigator,” NASA’s Perseverance rover Twitter account posted this week. “Did this ancient lakebed ever have life? The tools I brought will help begin the hunt. I’m a bot on a mission.”
The “hunt” largely means scouring the geological and chemical make-up of rocks in the Jezero Crater, a place NASA believes was “once flooded with water and was home to an ancient river delta.” Primitive life could have potentially dwelled in these wet soils, like it does on Earth. Read more…
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Source : Perseverance rover officially starts its big search for past life…with lasers
