If all goes right, Thursday the Perseverance Rover will be safely on Martian ground, where it can begin searching for signs of ancient life, and collecting and storing rock and soil samples.

Originally from Valais, the Swiss Arya Udry is associate professor in planetology and martian geology at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. At 33, she is one of the researchers who will work alongside NASA on the Perseverance rover , which is due to land on the Red Planet this Thursday, February 18 at 9:55 p.m. Swiss time. This enthusiast explains to Heidi.news the hopes that the mission represents for her scientific field, Martian geology. To find in video (above), and in long version in the text below.

NASA’s rover Perseverance on Thursday neared its encounter with Mars, hewing to a trajectory that will plunge it into the atmosphere of the Red Planet to begin a sequence of maneuvers designed to avoid surface hazards and deposit the rover inside a crater that may hold remnants of ancient life. NASA anticipates the spacecraft will enter the atmosphere about 3:48 p.m. and deploy a parachute four minutes later. Touchdown is expected about 3:55 p.m.

Rough terrain will require spacecraft to use autonomous navigation system to avoid hazards

A person can survive 30 days (or more) without food, 3 days without water, and 3 minutes without air. The latest climate research indicates all three will be in short supply as average temperatures on Earth increase. Hotter, drier conditions will reduce harvests, constrain water supplies, and make it more difficult to breathe. Great thinkers like Rex Tillerson say we will adapt, but he and his climate change denier friends fail to appreciate what that adaptation will involve.

As the transition to clean energy gains momentum, the United States faces the dilemma that it is almost completely subordinate to China in terms of the rare minerals it uses to build clean energy systems.

When Arya Udry was a little girl, she would stare at the sky and ponder the possibility of life beyond Earth.

The ancient people of western Utah’s Danger Cave lived well. They ate freshwater fish, ducks and other small game, according to detritus they left behind. They had a lush lakeside view with cattails, bulrushes and water-loving willows adorning the marshlands.

NASA has selected another UNLV professor to join the team of scientists working on the Mars 2020 mission.

A local professor has been chosen to join a mission to Mars. UNLV Geoscientist Arya Udry was selected out of 119 applicants by NASA.

A local professor has been chosen to join a mission to Mars. UNLV Geoscientist Arya Udry was selected out of 119 applicants by NASA.

A UNLV scientist will help NASA with its Mars mission by studying rocks collected from the red planet. The mars rover will recover the rocks from the planets surface.