NASA’s Perseverance rover has been exploring Mars since 2021, conducting myriad experiments and looking for life on the red planet. Experts have long been hopeful that we would find signs of life on Mars and now they say they’re hopeful Perseverance has already found it.
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00:00NASA's Perseverance rover has been exploring Mars since 2021, conducting myriad experiments
00:10and looking for life on the red planet. Experts have long been hopeful that we would find signs
00:14of life on Mars, and now they say their hopeful Perseverance has already found it. The rover has
00:20been rolling around an area called the Jezero Crater, or where experts believe used to be a
00:24river delta, areas which on Earth often team with life. Perseverance has been looking under the
00:29surface of this area using its ground-penetrating radar, which allows it to image subterranean areas
00:34to a depth of more than 65 feet. Their underground imaging has now confirmed that the area was likely
00:39a lake bed at some point, eventually drying into a river delta. On Earth, areas like this are ripe
00:45with microbial life, meaning experts picked just the right place to investigate for signs of life
00:50on Mars. Perseverance has already been digging and collecting samples to eventually send back to
00:54scientists for further analysis and is 60% of the way to filling its coffers. And experts suspect if
01:00life once did exist in the area, they're quite confident those samples likely already include
01:05signs of that very life. However, those samples aren't expected to make the trip to Earth until 2033.