Why Does NASA Want To Return Mars Samples To Earth?
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) plans to return samples from Mars back to Earth by 2031. , This is making many people say why? Mars is the closest planet to Earth that may have had a really good chance of life. NASA and other space agencies have sent missions to Mars to uncover the secret we have been asking for the last century: Is there life on Mars?
Robotic explorers/ How will they return samples?
NASA has sent many missions to Mars, almost all of them have shown water once flowed on Mars. Right now NASA has 4 active missions on the surface… Curiosity, Insight, Perseverance and Ingenuity.
Curiosity has been exploring the planet since 2012 it has driven almost 16 miles (16.39 kKilometers) on the red planet and is still active. Curiosity has found many pieces of evidence indicating for life and water on the red planet.
Perseverance is the newest rover on Mars. It landed on February 18th, 2021 Perseverance has a mission of taking Mars samples, putting them in tubes and dropping them on the ground. Later NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will return the samples back to Earth by picking them up and launching them and then an orbiter will collect the samples and will start heading to Earth. Then drop the samples in a mini capsule that will return them safely to Earth.
What does NASA hope to find?
NASA hopes to find out if there is life in the samples simply Microbs.
Or possibly water-like aliens like the Tardigrade that is not microscopic but is hard to see with from the Human eye.
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Source: Collected Images NASA