Mars LANDING - level 3

 

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has become the second NASA rover to touch down on Mars after a six-month journey through space.

 

NASA’s mission is to find signs of life on the Red Planet; however, the riskiest maneuver was to get through the thin atmosphere and land safely on the Martian surface. Mars has long been a death trap for incoming space crafts with many failing to land safely. The six-wheeled machine weighs a ton, and it should spend at least two years exploring the landing site region.

 

In the first pictures transmitted from its landing site in the Jezero Crater, the rover appeared to be in a great shape and it will now begin gathering rock samples to be analyzed for signs of past microscopic life. Scientists believe that the area was once flooded with water, and it was home to an ancient river delta.

 

Difficult words: maneuver (a series of skillful moves), microscopic (very small), delta (an area where a river spreads out into several branches before entering the sea).