The largest and most sophisticated vehicle ever sent to Mars will land on the red planet next week, beginning a two-year mission that will search for signs of life and prepare the way for future human visits.
All being well, on Thursday the $2.7bn Perseverance rover will touch down on Jezero Crater near the Martian equator to explore the planet’s surface and collect samples to be sent back to Earth. An ultralight on-board helicopter will also be launched in what would be the first powered flight on another planet.
“Perseverance is a huge upgrade on all the previous landers and rovers we’ve sent to the planet,” said Professor Andrew Coates, a University College London space scientist who has been involved in Mars missions for 20 years.
But the car-sized Perseverance must first survive what Nasa engineers famously called “seven minutes of terror” when the previous Curiosity rover landed in 2012. That is the time it takes to decelerate from the entry speed of 20,000kph, when the craft reaches the Martian atmosphere, to a touchdown that is slower than walking pace.
The technology deployed will be an upgraded version of that on Curiosity, with added safety features including a “range trigger” to guide the opening of the craft’s parachute and maximise the chance of a gentle touchdown.
To do so, Perseverance will have to cut itself free from its parachute and begin a rocket-powered descent — “a kind of jetpack with eight engines pointed down at the ground”, as Al Chen, the engineer responsible for descent and landing, put it.
The final phase will involve a “sky crane” lowering the rover to the surface on a set of cables. When the lander senses that its wheels have touched the ground, it cuts the cables connecting it to the descent vehicle, which flies off to crash-land a safe distance away.
Descent may only take seven minutes but mission controllers at Jet Propulsion Lab in California will not know for 11 minutes — the time taken for radio signals to travel 200m km back to Earth — whether Perseverance has landed safely.
Jezero Crater has been chosen as the drop site because the Nasa scientists believe it is one of the best places on Mars to search for signs of ancient microbial life. More than 3bn years ago, when water flowed on Mars, it was a lake, fed by a river with a delta.
Perseverance will journey around the ancient and now desiccated terrain, armed with instruments to dig and probe the rocks and soil — physically and chemically — for fossilised signs of ancient life. Scientists do not expect to find living organisms.
An aerial view of the crater will be provided by the Ingenuity helicopter, weighting just 1.8kg, which is scheduled to make five test flights. It is not part of the primary science mission but what Nasa calls a technology demonstration, to show how well a rotorcraft can perform in the Martian atmosphere which is just 1 per cent as dense as Earth’s.
Another forward-looking technology experiment is the toaster-sized Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or Moxie, which will make oxygen out of Mars’ thin air by electrochemically breaking down carbon dioxide. If astronauts are ever to land and live on the red planet they would need locally generated oxygen to breathe and an ingredient for fuel.
Perseverance will also leave a legacy on the Martian surface for future missions. Its Sample Caching System will put broken rock and dust into metal canisters and leave them behind to be collected and brought to Earth by future missions that Nasa is planning in collaboration with the European Space Agency.
Some time in the early 2030s, they hope, scientists will be able to analyse these samples in terrestrial labs using equipment far too large and complex to send to another planet.
It is possible that Perseverance — or the Rosalind Franklin rover due for launch next year as part of Europe’s ExoMars mission — will by then have found signs of past or even present life on Mars. Perseverance is looking among other things for geological evidence of stromatolites, layered deposits built up by microbes in the ancient Jezero lake.
But confirmation might have to wait a few years for laboratory examination of the samples to return to Earth. “Even if we find no evidence at all of life, that would be important,” said Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist. “We would have done a deep exploration of a habitable environment and shown it has not been inhabited.”
If, on the other hand, unmistakable evidence for biological activity was found on the one habitable planet that has been investigated beyond Earth, scientists could draw only one conclusion: the universe is teeming with life.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
