Gayle Anderson was live in Exposition Park with a preview of this afternoon’s landing of NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance. This is NASA’s 9th mission to the Red Planet. Along with characterizing the planet’s geology and climate, and paving the way for human exploration beyond the Moon, the rover is focused on astrobiology, or the study of life throughout the universe. Perseverance is tasked with searching for telltale signs that microbial life might have lived on Mars billions of years ago. It will collect rock core samples in metal tubes, and future missions would return these samples to Earth for deeper study.
We can watch the afternoon landing and mission on mars.nasa.gov/mars2020
Because of the California Science Center’s connection with NASA, the Exposition Park facility has many online science programs and education, among them “Ever Wonder?…who drives a Mars rover?” The podcast features Hallie Abarca, a former Mars rover driver and software engineer on the Perseverance rover at NASA JPL. She talks about what it was like to drive other Mars rovers, working on “Mars time,” and a new JPL website where you can virtually drive across the surface of Mars from your home! For more information, take a look at the California Science Center website.
If you have questions or complaints, please feel free to contact Gayle Anderson at 1-323-460-5732 or email at Gayle.Anderson@KTLA.com
Gayle Anderson reports for the KTLA 5 News on February 18, 2021.