South Sudan, also known as the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country situated in East-Central Africa and it is between the Central African Republic and Ethiopia. South Sudan is the youngest country in the world because in 2011 it gained independence from the Republic of Sudan. At this moment, the name of the capital is Juba.

After 2 years of independence from Sudan, the Republic of South Sudan was involved in a civil war. The 2 groups that took part in that catastrophic situation were the people who supported Salva Kiir and the people who did not. The remaining group started the civil war by trying to do a coup d’etat but they were not successful.

Luckily, in 2018 they stopped fighting and the 2 sides began to converse with each other. Later on, when 2020 arrived, the 2 sides decided to be in peace and they finished the armed conflict. Sadly, the citizens that live in South Sudan experienced an economic crisis for those years of chaos, but now they are working hard to have a stable economy.

The rover landed this past Thursday, February 18th with the purpose of finding microbial past life. It is 3 meters long and weighs 1,025 kilograms. With those measurements it’s the biggest robot which has landed on the red planet. Furthermore, it’s also the most expensive one; it costs 2,700 millions of dollars. As it was planned, at 9:55 pm Spanish time, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed the arrival of the rover which took off on July 30th.

One of the principal instruments of the Perseverance was fabricated by a group of Spanish investigators of the Astrobiology Centre. This instrument is the MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer).

Its function is not only to measure the value of temperature and pressure, but also to study the dust particles in the Martian atmosphere.  Moreover, a team from the University of Valladolid has participated in building SuperCam, an object which uses a laser to identify the chemical composition of rocks and soil. It also has a pole with an incredible camera which can take high definition color photos of the planet.

The most important instrument of the rover is MOXIE and it is used to test how we can get oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. This  could be so useful if we think about living on Mars. However, the principal task of the Perseverance is to search traces of microbial past life. It will work with two other robots in this important job, which is going to answer a lot of questions we have been asking for ages. This event is going to be very important for human history.