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NASA’s Perseverance rover has opened its robotic eyes on a tantalizing landscape on Mars – one that scientists hope will answer the question of whether a planet that once had all the ingredients to sustain life actually saw life emerge.
On Thursday afternoon at 3:55 p.m., members of the flight control team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., leaped from their consoles and gave a simultaneous cheer after the arrival of the signal that confirmed the spacecraft was resting intact on the Martian surface. It was a moment of jubilation that echoed NASA’s past successes on the red planet, but with masks and elbow bumps instead of hugs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.