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.