We all know St. Joseph School is excellent, but now we are Out of This World!!!

From NASA: Perseverance launched on July 30,2020, and will touch down on Mars at approximately 3:55 p.m. EST on Thursday, February 18^th. During landing, the rover will have to plunge through the thin Martian atmosphere at a speed of over 12,000 mph. A parachute and powered descent slow the rover down to about 2 mph. A large sky crane then lowers the rover to land softly on six wheels. Landing on Mars is hard.

The rover’s new home will be Jezero Crater, just north of the Martian equator. Jezero once contained a lake, which scientists think is one of the most ideal places to find evidence of ancient microbial life. If life exists anywhere else in our solar system, chances are, it might be at Jezero Crater. The main question Perseverance is trying to answer is: Was there ever ancient life on Mars? To answer that question, the rover will collect and store rock and soil samples for return to Earth by a future mission. Once on Earth, scientists can use a variety of sophisticated instruments, many of them too large and bulky to transport to Mars, to help answer this question.
If you want to watch the landing at home, please visit https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/landing/watch-online/ for more information.