Scientists will face Los Angeles to decide where the next Martian rover will land – BGR

Hey, we're going on Mars! Well, not us specifically, but NASA is, and they really need to know where to land before lighting the candle during the next Mars 2020 mission. NASA has come up with a new brilliant rover and it will incredibly powerful, equipped with all kinds of scientific instruments and observation tools, but … where exactly is it going to go?

This is the question that "hundreds" of scientists will discuss at a conference in Los Angeles this week. The event, which will last three days, will allow participants to present arguments in favor of landing at certain locations on the Martian surface, highlighting the specific points of interest that a Martian rover could study in more detail.

"The mission of Mars 2020 is not only to look for signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the past, but also to look for signs of past microbial life," writes NASA in a blog post. "The landing site for March 2020 is of great interest to the global community because, among the new scientific equipment of the rover for surface exploration, it includes a sampling system that will collect samples rock and soil and place them in a "cache" on the surface of Mars. "

The mobile itself will be able to analyze the samples it has collected, but one of NASA's future goals is to be able to send soil samples from Mars to Earth for further research. more rigorous. NASA says any mission after March 2020 may be able to return these samples to our planet, which would be a monumental feat.

Deciding where to land is extremely important for many obvious reasons. You must be able to land in a safe place without risk to the equipment during the descent. Landing on a hill or near a strong fall is obviously a very bad idea. It is therefore better to choose flat and smooth sites. Elevation is another major concern, but even with these criteria, there are still innumerable places where a rover could Earth.

Hope NASA will have some good ideas this week and will soon be able to decide on a landing site. Wherever they choose to land, the March 2020 rover will be the most high-tech machine to have ever landed on Mars, and could reveal amazing things about our friendliest neighbor.