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  Perseverance To Land On Mars February 18                                             Source:  NASA's Perseverance Robotic Geologist To Explore Mars NASA's highly advanced robotic rover Perseverance will land on Mars on Thursday.  The potential discoveries are huge as Perseverance is the most advanced rover NASA has built.  Perseverance will serve as a geologist on Mars, collecting rocks, minerals and soil samples.  The mission's purpose is to search for any signs of ancient life on Mars.  The rover will also have a small helicopter onboard to conduct the first drone flights on another planet. Amazing Technological Journey Perseverance has travelled onboard a spacecraft for the 300 million mile journey to Mars.  It will exit the spacecraft in a capsule for the descent into the Martian atmosphere.  The capsule will trav...

Essential Element of Crude Oil Just Discovered on Mars Source:  Mars Stock Image Where There Is Oil, There Could be Life Two astrobiologists have found the basic elements of oil on Mars.  Jacob Heinz of Berlin's Technische Universität and Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University in Saint Louis have found organic compounds called "thiophenes" that are present in crude oil and coal on Earth.  The thiophenes were discovered in dried mud that NASA's Curiosity Rover dug up in Mars' Gale Crater. This is a remarkable scientific discovery that raises the intriguing question, once again, about life existing on Mars. Oil and Life Where there is oil, there many times is life.  The issue now confronting the scientists is how the thiophenes on Mars were created.  Most often  the creation of thiophenes is a "biotic" process that involves living elements.  If that is the case, according to scientist Schulze-Makuch, "there was early life on...