Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2021

48 MARCH-APRIL 2021 MARS ROVERS Earth – or, at least, some- where nearby. This sepa- ration of the scientific instruments that per- form analysis from the future collection and de- livery hardware that will deliver samples back to must always qualify that such searches are strongly biased to- wards the kinds of lifeforms we have on Earth and the evolution- ary processes that resulted in what we observe today. That said, our own explorations here on Earth have greatly expanded the kinds of lifeforms to look for, with the increasing number of identified species we refer to as extremophiles dramatically ex- panding the range of amazing conditions under which life can proliferate. (3) “Caching samples” – this ob- jective makes clear that NASA in- tends on having future missions explore much more of the Mar- tian surface and that it also in- tends on performing much more exhaustive analyses here on T his annotated mosaic depicts a possible route the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover could take across Jezero Crater as it investi- gates several ancient environ- ments that may have once been habitable. [NASA/JPL-Caltech]