“Is there life on Mars?” is a question people have asked for more than a century. But in order to finally get the answer, we have to know what to look for and where to go on the planet to look for evidence of past life. With the Perseverance rover set to land on Mars on February 18, 2021, we are finally in a position to know where to go, what to look for, and knowing whether there is, or ever was, life on the Red Planet.

Credit: 

John Grant

Center for Earth and Planetary Studies

Si.edu

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/percy-life-on-mars

If all goes according to plan, the landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (“Percy”) tomorrow (February 18, 2021) will mark the start of NASA’s ninth surface mission on the Red Planet. Percy will touch down in Jezero crater on Mars, where she will set off exploring new and uncharted terrains in search of ancient signs of life. Nearly 60 years have passed since the first spacecraft were sent to Mars, and it’s inspiring (albeit sometimes unbelievable) to reflect on the progress that has been made since then. First, we sent spacecraft to fly-by, then to orbit, then to land, and finally to rove. As we’ve become more familiar with Mars over time, and as our technological capabilities have improved, our methods of and goals for exploration have evolved in turn.  And with each new mission, humans have pushed the boundaries a little more—or in the case of Percy, a lot more. Here I highlight three new (and particularly challenging) aspects of the Mars 2020 mission that distinguish it from previous missions and that have the potential to significantly impact the future of Mars exploration.

Credits: Mariah Baker, si.edu

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/driving-mars-exploration-perseverance

After glimpsing faint but widespread super-heated material in the Sun’s outer atmosphere, a NASA sounding rocket is going back for more. This time, they’re carrying a new instrument optimized to see it across a wider region of the Sun.

The mission, known as Extreme Ultraviolet Normal Incidence Spectrograph, or EUNIS for short, will launch from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The launch window opens on May 18, 2021.

EUNIS is an instrument suite mounted on a sounding rocket, a type of space vehicle that makes short flights above Earth’s atmosphere before falling back to Earth. Getting to space is important, because EUNIS observes the Sun in a range of extreme ultraviolet light that does not penetrate Earth’s atmosphere.

For the upcoming flight, the fourth for the EUNIS instrument, the team added a new channel to measure wavelengths between nine and 11 nanometers. (Visible light wavelengths are between 380 and 700 nanometers.)  The new wavelength range is attracting attention after an unexpected finding from EUNIS’s previous flight in 2013.

Credit: NASA