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Why is NASA so invested in exploring Mars?

Engineers from Georgia Tech are a vital part of the missions exploring the red planet.

ATLANTA — The Mars rover Perseverance is about to make history once again as NASA invests a great deal of time and money exploring the red planet.

Soon, Perseverance will launch a small helicopter, the first-ever to fly over another planet. Since landing on Mars in late February, the rover has sent video and sound back to earth.

Researchers are hoping to find evidence of ancient life on Mars that might reveal important information about our existence on earth.

“We can learn more about the origins of life itself and how life has evolved,” Dr. Frances Rivera-Hernandez, one of several people from Georgia Tech who have been involved in current and past rover missions, said.

Scientists believe Mars once had lakes, streams, and perhaps even an ocean.

Georgia Tech graduate Vishnu Srdhar is the Instrument Engineer for Perseverance’s SuperCam that is gathering video and sound from Mars. He said researchers are hoping to learn how climate change impacted earth’s next-door-neighbor.

“From that, we can really learn how earth is going to evolve over the course of millions and billions of years,” Srdhar explained.

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Perseverance is searching for signs of ancient life in an area where there was once water. We’re not talking about the existence of little green men, but microscopic life billions of years ago.

Georgia Tech’s Dr. James Wray helped select the area Perseverance is exploring.

“The time when this place on Mars had a lake would have been over three-and-a-half billion years ago,” said Dr. Wray, who like Rivera-Hernandez is with Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Signs of early microscopic life on Mars could begin to paint a picture of earth billions of years ago.

“This is a period of time that we do not have any insights for on earth,” says Rivera-Hernandez. “To me, this is really a missing piece trying to understand the evolution of life.”

The research is also helping NASA prepare for manned trips to Mars one day in the future.

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