Seven months after NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars, the space agency has announced that their rock-scooping robot has officially managed to collect some samples from the red planet. Although the bulk of the study of these samples will be done when the rover returns to earth, this successful collection has allowed NASA to begin preliminary geologic study of the planet.
A primary question for researchers is whether Mars could have once hosted a more hospitable landscape than it does today. Evidence of an ancient lake on its surface points to a time when Mars may have had a stable environment.
