'It inspires us,' MPM Planetarium director says of Mars mission

MILWAUKEE - After more than six months of hurtling hundreds of millions of miles through space, NASA's Perseverance Rover safely landed in an ancient lake bed on Mars Thursday afternoon, Feb. 18 to search for evidence of ancient life.

The question has been wondered for eons, even before David Bowie asked it in song.

"Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking signs of past life!" said Swati Mohan, Mars 2020 guidance and controls operations lead.

The question now before NASA's latest Mars rover, the small-car-sized Perseverance and its four-pound helicopter, Ingenuity, is whether there was life, but just getting there was a challenge. The spacecraft separated from the entry vehicle, screaming at more than 10,000 miles per hour, with a supersonic parachute deploying to slow the vehicle, which cut away and used rockets to slow its speed before lowering the rover by a crane onto its landing zone in the Jezero Crater.

"The goal, of course, is to collect promising samples in this," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator.

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This, from an ancient river delta where water flowed billions of years ago.

"Follow the water," said Sanjay Limaye, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Limaye, whose research focuses on Venus, said any new data is welcome.

"As the only life we have known is what we have encountered on Earth," said Limaye.

Geologic samples will be collected in tubes and then sealed and left on the surface, where future missions will collect them.

Back on Earth, Milwaukee Public Museum Planetarium Director Bob Bonadurer says the Mars 2020 mission is a stepping stone.

"The Perseverance Rover is not going to find the answer to that, but it gets us a step closer," he said. "It just inspires us. I think all of us. Space is out there. It’s reachable, and we can go there and someday."

As famed Carl Sagan said, "The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space."

The NASA Perseverance mission the third Mars mission from across the globe reaching the red planet in February alone. The others were from the UAE and China.