'Seven Minutes of Terror' for NASA's Perseverance Rover on Arrival at Mars

Planetarium News

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover mission is only a matter of hours away from its landing on the surface of the Red Planet. Its 293-million-mile journey from Earth to Mars is coming to an end. Once the craft hits the top of Mars' atmosphere at between 12,000 and 13,000 miles per hour, an action-packed seven minutes of descent awaits it – nicknamed the 'Seven Minutes of Terror' – complete with temperatures equivalent to the surface of the Sun, a supersonic parachute inflation, and the first ever autonomous guided landing on Mars.

Only then can the rover – the biggest, heaviest, cleanest, and most sophisticated six- wheeled robotic geologist ever launched into space – search its target, Jezero Crater, for signs of ancient life and collect samples that will eventually be returned to Earth.

This illustration shows the events that occur in the final minutes of the nearly seven-month journey that NASA’s Perseverance rover has taken to arrive at Mars. Hundreds of critical events must execute perfectly and exactly on time for the rover to land on Mars safely.

“NASA has been exploring Mars since Mariner 4 performed a flyby in July of 1965, with two more flybys, seven successful orbiters, and eight landers since then,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “Perseverance, which was built from the collective knowledge gleaned from such trailblazers, has the opportunity to not only expand our knowledge of the Red Planet, but to investigate one of the most important and exciting questions of humanity about the origin of life both on Earth and also on other planets.”

Jezero Crater is the perfect place to search for signs of ancient microbial life. Billions of years ago, the now-bone-dry 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) basin was home to an actively- forming river delta and lake filled with water. “Perseverance’s sophisticated science instruments will not only help in the hunt for fossilized microbial life, but also expand our knowledge of Martian geology and its past, present, and future,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for Mars 2020, from Caltech in Pasadena, California. “Our science team has been busy planning how best to work with what we anticipate will be a firehose of cutting-edge data. That’s the kind of ‘problem’ we are looking forward to.”

An artist's impression of the Perseverance Rover exploring Jezero crater on the surface of Mars.

A key objective of Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will also characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith. Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans.

NASA Television and the agency’s website will carry live coverage of the landing of Perseverance on Mars from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory beginning at 7:15 p.m. UTC on Thursday, 18th February 2021. Go to: nasa.gov/live

All above information courtesy of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Caltech Learn More about Mars, the Perseverance Rover and its Exploration of Jezero Crater

As part of its contribution to the 2021 South Downs Dark Skies Festival, which is an entirely online event this year, the South Downs Planetarium continues its short series of virtual shows tomorrow evening (Wednesday, 17th February) at 7pm with a quick tour of the winter night sky followed by an in-depth look at the Red Planet Mars, including a preview of Thursday evening's 'nail-biting' landing of the Perseverance Rover on the Martian surface - the so called 'Seven Minutes of Terror' - and the fascinating studies it will carry out in the months ahead in Jezero crater, a place that was once home to an actively forming river delta and a lake that filled the crater.

You can watch this latest production entitled 'The Winter Sky and the Red Planet Mars' from 7pm on Wednesday 17th February in full HD on the Planetarium' s YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5npZmbA_Ntb0aj14Mm8VlQ

Don't forget that you can still watch the first of our virtual shows entitled 'A Guided Tour of the Winter Night Sky' in full HD on our YouTube channel at: https://youtu.be/-IxT1i6G1Uw

In addition, on Friday, 19th February at 6pm, Dr John Mason, the Planetarium's Principal Lecturer, will be taking part in a Facebook Live Question and Answer session, giving you a chance to ask questions about the Mars landing and any other astronomy-related subjects. Tune in on the South Downs National Park Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sdnpa

The Planetarium's final virtual tour entitled 'Winter Stars and Our Nearest Neighbour, the Moon' may be watched from 7pm on Wednesday, 24th February on the Planetarium's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5npZmbA_Ntb0aj14Mm8VlQ

We look forward to welcoming you all back to the South Downs Planetarium in Chichester just as soon as Government guidance allows.

Our mailing address is: South Downs Planetarium Sir Patrick Moore Building Kingsham Farm, Kingsham Road Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8AE United Kingdom