[서울=뉴스핌] Reporter Won-jin Choi = As the US’ Mars exploration rover’Perseverance’ succeeded in landing on Mars, the mission to explore life began in earnest.
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| The first photo sent by NASA’s Mars rover, Perseverance, to the control station. NASA TV/Handout via REUTERS 2021.02.18 [사진=로이터 뉴스핌] |
According to the Reuters news agency on the 18th (local time), NASA (NASA) is the fifth video exploration rover, Perservance, on the day at’Jezero Crater’, a target site estimated to be the bottom of an old lake on Mars. He said he had landed safely.
Since its launch on July 30 last year, Perseverance has flown 472 million km for about seven months at a speed six times faster than the bullet speed of the M16 rifle.
The probe landed on a Mars target and transmitted the first black and white photographs of the surface of Mars to NASA. It took 11 minutes for the image to be transferred from Mars to Earth via satellite.
The goal of the $2.7 billion Mars exploration project is to find traces of life, including fossils of microscopic organisms on Mars. The scientific community estimates that microscopic organisms lived on Mars about 3 billion years ago. Mars is the fourth planet closest to the Sun, and it has a relatively warm climate and moisture, creating an environment in which life can live.
NASA is conducting two more missions to Mars, bringing specimens to Earth within 10 years. The samples Rover collected from Mars are planned to be delivered to another spacecraft later and brought to Earth in 2031. The United States expects to be able to explore manned Mars in the 2030s.
Perseverance is equipped with a small 1.8 kg helicopter, Ingenuity. Attempts the first power flight on Mars.
The world’s attention is focused on whether Perseverance can find traces of life on the’Red Planet’ and successfully collect information necessary for future manned exploration missions.
NASA has three Mars satellites, and the European Aviation Administration has two.
On the 10th, the UAE probe’Amal’ (Arabic for hope) successfully entered Mars orbit. Following the UAE, China also launched the spacecraft Tianyuan into Mars.
wonjc6@newspim.com