The scope and new objectives of the Perseverance Rover.

On December 12, NASA announced that the Perseverance Rover reached the Jezero crater and is heading towards its first scientific stop, after a climb of months, it has lasted months to climb the 500 meters in height, specifically 3 months and a half. They are 500 meters high, keep in mind that he is not a climber, he is simply a Rover and even so he has managed to overcome slopes of 20%, on this route he has made several scientific stops to highlight in the image you can see the route. In the coming years it will go to areas where the Martian crust, the Martian soil, is among the oldest on Mars, it is among the oldest rocks not only on Mars but in the solar system and that is good because at that stage we know that Mars There was water and it had the same conditions that the earth had to be able to develop life, so, if there are any microorganisms, any fossils left around from that time, they should be in those rocks.

The highlight of the route, there are several stages of the new route, would be to reach Lake Charmes, the Lake thing to keep in mind is not because it is a lake today, I suppose they have given it that name because in ancient times it was a lake, in fact, They believe that this very ancient lake was better preserved than the Jezero crater area, so maybe it has some interesting surprises. Then you will travel about 1600 meters to reach the edge, keep in mind that the rovers go very slowly, that is, those 1600 meters can take several months of travel and when you reach that edge again from the crater after traveling those 1600 meters from that ancient lake is going to investigate some outcrops of huge rocks, some blocks known as mega breccias so it will perhaps be a good opportunity to see rocks with curious shapes but it will also be a good opportunity because those rocks are a very old bedrock that was broken, experts believe during the impact, it is decided that it was a colossal event that altered the red planet and probably sculpted the Martian crust creating an impact basin 10,000 km in diameter, that happened about a few years ago. 3.9 billion years ago is also the time when we know there was liquid water on the surface of Mars.

A key objective of the Perseverance mission on Mars is astrobiology, which includes the storage of samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life, the Rover will try to analyze not only the geology of the planet, it will try to characterize and analyze the possible remains of life in the past and present, if possible; At present, if there is life on Mars, we suspect at least it would be the last places where it could be searched, it would be under the Martian surface, just as it happens here on Earth. Here on Earth we know that there are many microorganisms and many beings that live below the surface and can be there for millions of years without having to go outside, that would be a reservoir of life on Mars; the other would be under the ice caps.