Battle lines are being drawn on the Red Planet. Last week, more than 200 scientists from around the globe gathered in Los Angeles to debate the best place to send NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. The choice of landing site will steer the direction of Mars research for the next several decades.
Similar in design to Curiosity, the as-yet-unnamed rover is being outfitted with state-of-the-art instrumentation and the ability to drill rock samples.
The rover will stash these samples in a safe place on Mars until they can be retrieved by a future mission. When the samples return to Earth — years or maybe decades in the future — scientists hope to find biosignatures, or signs of ancient life. All told, NASA hopes to bring back a set of rocks the size of a few boxes of chalk. Since the second mission is not guaranteed, each scientist at the meeting was forced to weigh the odds of return when casting their vote.
