Overcoming ‘7 minutes of horror’ … the US Mars exploration rover lands on Mars

[이데일리 강민구 기자] The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Mars exploration rover’Personality’ landed on Mars at 5:55 am (Korean time) on the 19th.

On this day, the Perseverance was settled in the’Jezero Crater’, which is believed to be the ancient delta of Mars. The rover is tasked with finding traces of ancient life that may have existed on Mars in the future, collecting soil and rock samples, and storing them sealed in titanium tubes.

The samples collected and stored in this exploration activity are expected to be returned to Earth in 2031 by another rover, which will be launched later, to retrieve the samples.

Imagination of a scene where the Percivirence landed on the surface of Mars by a lander. (Source = National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

The length of the Perseverance is 3m and has 6 wheels. It is America’s fifth rover after Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity.

After launching on July 30 last year, it flew about 470 million km to reach Mars. The most demanding and dangerous of this flight, it safely passed the process of entering, descending and landing on Mars, a mission section called ‘7 minutes of horror’.

The Perseverance will attempt its first powered flight on Mars using the 1.8 kg small helicopter,’Insurance’. An experiment to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen in Mars’ atmosphere will also be conducted using an experimental device called’MOXIE’.

Meanwhile, NASA has also released an image of the surface of Mars sent by the Perservance to Earth through Twitter.

NASA has also released an image of the surface of Mars sent by the Perservance to Earth (Photo = NASA Twitter).