Countdown - NASA Perseverance Mars Rover - touchdown scheduled for 3:55 pm EST Feb 18

[Fuzz]

That skycrane is just a fantastic piece of engineering.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

That skycrane is just a fantastic piece of engineering.

Guaranteed the first meeting where that was pitched included the phrase "Now I know this sounds crazy, but what if we....."

[Snuffleupagus]

I wonder if they'll ever send the rover to take picks of the gear that helped it's landing.

[troutman]

How close is to Valles Marineris? I would love to see drones flying around the canyon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezero...e-20191217.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Helicopter_Ingenuity

[Fuzz]

About 8000km, so it's a bit of a flight.


In fact, you'd have a tough time picking 2 random points farther away from each other on Mars...so good job on that.

[shogged]

ya that video is the good stuff for sure, what a cool project.



now im wondering how long until they attempt the drone flight?

[troutman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Helicopter_Ingenuity

The small drone helicopter is planned for deployment about 60 days after the landing of the Perseverance rover on 18 February 2021 as part of the NASA Mars 2020 mission.[7] It is planned to make the first powered flight on any planet beyond Earth,[8] and is expected to fly up to five times during its 30-day test campaign, early in the rover's mission, as it is primarily a technology demonstration.[1][9] Each flight is planned to be at altitudes ranging from 3–5 m (10–16 ft) above the ground.[1] In up to 90 seconds per flight, it could travel as far as 50 m (160 ft) downrange and then back to the starting area.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Amazing.

Straight up, though, it's disappointing mars is so lame. Would be way cooler if there were weird alien trees, and 5D animals, and hot alien chicks or something. Just basically looks like Airdrie instead.

I was thinking it had more of a Nose Hill Park Vibe.

[DownInFlames]

The pattern on the parachute has a hidden message. This guy decoded it,

Spoiler!

https://twitter.com/user/status/1363965938421411841

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

I wonder if they'll ever send the rover to take picks of the gear that helped it's landing.

Maybe with the helicopter it's possible now, but for the land rovers they travel like a half KM / week on good terrain. I think generally they just slowly go wherever the path is clear.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

About 8000km, so it's a bit of a flight.


In fact, you'd have a tough time picking 2 random points farther away from each other on Mars...so good job on that.

I’d be interested to hear about why they landed where they did. There must be a reason or a target. You’d think a huge canyon would be a great place to look for evidence of life

[flamingred89]

I wonder how nervous the narrator was as she was explaining things happening in real time. I can barely say perseverance at the the best of times. What a cool video.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by flamingred89

I wonder how nervous the narrator was as she was explaining things happening in real time. I can barely say perseverance at the the best of times. What a cool video.

They joke that they built a $2.9b rover to teach people how to pronounce and spell perseverance

[Fuzz]

NASA chose Jezero Crater as the landing site for the Perseverance rover. Scientists believe the area was once flooded with water and was home to an ancient river delta. The process of landing site selection involved a combination of mission team members and scientists from around the world, who carefully examined more than 60 candidate locations on the Red Planet. After the exhaustive five-year study of potential sites, each with its own unique characteristics and appeal, Jezero rose to the top.

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/missi.../landing-site/

More at the link.

Landing in a canyon like that would be even more challenging. Think of the grand canyon and how little of it is flat. Once you are in there, you may not be able to move much. You also greatly limit communications because you have a much smaller window to the sky.

[Northendzone]

as a result of this thread, i took to reading a little more about this. fascinating technology being used.

the plans to bring back core samples are something else; however, i wonder if we are really messing with nature by bringing back part of a another planet to ours, although we have already doen it with moon roocks

[Sluggo]

The solar system has a non-zero interchange of material. I think the big buzz about the modern prospect of life on Mars started from a meteorite of Martian origin 10 or so years ago. Evidentially, the "fossils" found turned out to be explained by geologic processes however there are areas identified by satellite that show ancient signs of water on the surface and one of these areas is where Perseverance landed.

In addition, the chances on sample return that Earth life would contaminate the samples is high so they are going through extreme measures to keep them isolated as a side effect that would greatly hinder the chances of a Martian bug getting out. If unfortunately a Mars bug did get out, odds are our more diverse and therefore better evolved immune systems/microbial life would most likely destroy or eat anything evolved/survived on the small niche that is the current Martian environment.

One of the theories going around is that of panspermia and if life is found on Mars, it could equally be as likely as being of Earth, Martian, another planet, or other origin. So we could actually be decedents of Martian, another Planet, Moon, or other celestial body. If they find life on Mars that is not like anything found on Earth it its likely any other solar system with minimal survival conditions would be almost guaranteed to harbor some form of life.

[Flashpoint]

Originally Posted by Sluggo

If they find life on Mars that is not like anything found on Earth it its likely any other solar system with minimal survival conditions would be almost guaranteed to harbor some form of life.

What we think we know about life (so far) is that it expands to fill every available niche. From thermovents at the bottom of the ocean to bacteria at the top of the atmosphere, it's ubiquitous.

The exception thus far is that we haven't found any outside of our own planet. Small sample size, and there are undoubtedly forms of life we can't detect. Nevertheless evidence of it on Mars would generally strengthen the proposition that we're not alone in the universe.

That would be a monumental paradigm shift in humanities' understanding of it's place in the universe.

OMFG I would love for it to be on our watch!

[troutman]

If life on Mars evolved completely separately from Earth, could it have an entirely different chemical basis (something different than DNA) and therefore could not interact with our biology?

[Northendzone]

^ or give us incredible powers beyond our comprehension

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by troutman

If life on Mars evolved completely separately from Earth, could it have an entirely different chemical basis (something different than DNA) and therefore could not interact with our biology?

I remember reading that the start of life on earth was a several billion to 1 event.

A random act in a small little warm pond that had the molecules that needed to join together to create the pre-biotic life.

https://researchoutreach.org/article...ed-life-earth/

Because of this, I always have trouble with the life out there argument. While its arrogant to believe that there are not fully developed or evolved complex life forms out there, sometimes if feels like there's an impossibility of it forming from the exact same conditions and err recipes that occurred here.

So my question would be, if there is formed life out there, did it evolve from the same unlikely events that happened on earth, using the same basic chocolate in my peanut butter formula? Or is that event and that recipe completely different?

How many attempts at life on earth occurred before the pre-biotic ooze here kicked things off. Is it possible that we dodged a bullet in a sense that we could have been formed from a combination of different molecules combining together randomly to form a life that was based on something completely different from the DNA soup?

If I had a time machine could I go back those billions of years and ruin the creation of life just by peeing in a pond?

I have an expectation though that Mars because its similar in a lot of ways to earth would have a similar DNA design theory. But what about a planet that didn't have ponds, and life was founded in a methane pocket, or deep underground in a cavern, with the right heat, moisture and base silicons or metals.