NASA Will Send Two More Drones to Explore Mars

Let’s admit it: despite the huge amount of knowledge that astronomers have about the Universe, sending astronauts to the nearest planet to us is still difficult. At its closest approach, Mars is still tremendously farther away from Earth than the Moon is.

Therefore, humanity will just have to keep relying on robotic missions to explore the Red Planet. While sending rovers to Mars doesn’t represent anything new, maybe astronomers have to raise the stakes a bit by relying on drones instead.

NASA will send two new drones to fly on Mars soon

NASA plans to make new explorations of the Red Planet by sending two new helicopter drones there. The goal is to fetch Martian rocks for further study, to be more precise. The decision has been inspired by the performance of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter, meaning a small robotic helicopter that’s currently operating on the Red Planet. Ingenuity is also part of the Mars 2020 mission of NASA, along with the Perseverance rover.

The news seems to come in good alignment with the one we shared a few days ago, claiming that the space agency will bring Martian samples back to Earth. While that previous article was speaking about NASA bringing those samples by 2033, let’s all hope that it won’t take that long for the two new drones to fly above the Red Planet’s surface.

While some people still hope that astronomers will find signs of life on the Red Planet, one theory recently emerged, claiming that they had been looking for it in the wrong places. According to the theory, life as we know it can’t possibly exist at the surface of our neighboring planet because cosmic rays are able to destroy amino acids. Mars lacks a protective shield against those rays, which we can’t say about Earth. Therefore, life on Mars, if it exists, can only resist below the planet’s surface.