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So they made it. The seven minutes of terror from atmospheric entry to landing on Mars ended in a happy ending. An outcome that was anything but predictable, given that in this short space of time the probe had to slow down from a speed of 5.9 kilometres per second.<\/strong><\/p>\n Perseverance<\/strong>, the name of the rover that NASA<\/strong> sent to Mars, thus began its mission. However, there were Hope<\/strong> “waiting for it” on the planet, that is an orbiter launched by the United Arab Emirates<\/strong>, and Tianwen-1<\/strong>, that is a Chinese mission that also involves the landing of a rover. But why is Mars<\/strong> so crowded these days?<\/p>\n The American mission wants to look for clues about the ancient existence of microbial life forms<\/strong> on the planet. This interest was due to the discover of elements which suggest that on the Martian surface there was liquid water<\/u><\/strong> one time (today it is impossible, since the average temperature falls 50 degrees below zero<\/strong>).<\/p>\n Not only. The rover, that is a vehicle about the size of a SUV able to move on the Martian surface, will have to collect samples of rock<\/strong> which a later mission will retrieve to bring them down to Earth. During this mission, also Italy<\/strong> will have a major role<\/u><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Instead, Emirates\u2019 mission goal is to study the Martian atmosphere, particularly its lowest layer.\u00a0 Abu Dhabi<\/strong>\u2019s scientists are looking for elements that allow to better understand the Martian climate<\/strong> and its influence on the fact that the planet atmosphere is scattering oxygen and hydrogen into space.<\/p>\n The Chinese space agency<\/strong> planned instead a more complex mission. In fact, for about ten days, a probe orbits around the planet, here to understand the climate and the atmosphere in a better way. In a couple of months there will be a touchdown to lay down a rover that will study the geological composition of Mars soil.<\/p>\n All these activities are obviously preparatory for the landing of humans on Mars. A landing that, according to the patron of SpaceX Elon Musk<\/strong>, could happen by the middle of the decade, even though it is more credible to wait for the end of the next one.<\/p>\n But the study of a planet on which there was once water, we are obviously talking about millions of years ago, has another goal: understand the climate evolution on a planet that has similar characteristics to Earth and deduce clues that could help scientists to understand the climate evolution on our planet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Translated by Mura Denise, Ovalle Charlotte,\u00a0Perinelli Giorgia and Villa Michela<\/p>\n Reviewed by Prof. Robert Clarke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Perseverance rover has landed on Mars, where there is already a Chinese orbiter and one from the United Arab Emirates. Why are we interested in the red planet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1026,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n