FOG BLOG SCIENCE NEWS LOG: MARS ROVER 'PERSEVERANCE' LANDS SAFELY ON MARS!

NASA'S 'PERSEVERANC' , THE NEW MARS ROVER THAT HAS TAKEN A LONG JOURNEY TO GET THERE HAS LANDED SAFELY ON THE RED PLANET'S SURFACE....NASA’s newest rover touched down safely on the surface of Mars at 12:56 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday, completing a 293-million-mile journey through space and setting the stage for a mission that seeks to find evidence of ancient extraterrestrial life.

The six wheels of the 2,260-pound Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater, a former lakebed once fed by flowing water that scientists say would have been a welcoming home for microbes in Mars’ warmer, wetter past. If they’re right, the remains of those long-dead microbes should now reside in the sediments there.

Joyful team members in mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge could not hug or high-five one another, as they normally would in nonpandemic times. But their doubled-up masks didn’t hide the smiles on their faces as they clapped and cheered, a few feet apart.

Perseverance, the star of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, survived a hair-raising arrival procedure that’s often referred to as the “seven minutes of terror.”.....