Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover on the prowl and geared to collect and cache samples for future return to Earth.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Now being assembled at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is the Mars 2020 rover, the most complex piece of machinery to ever make a ballistic beeline for the Red Planet. The multi-tasked, hypothesis-driven wheeled robot is set to make landfall in February 2021, but where?

Convened last week was an international group grope of sorts that saw several hundred Mars scientists meet in a hotel ballroom just north of Los Angeles for two-and-a-half days of deliberation – at times taking on something akin to a polite, scientific-based geological and astrobiological food fight.

What happened at the gathering and why…and what was the outcome?

Check out the answer in my new Scientific American story at:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-double-down-on-landing-sites-for-sample-collecting-mars-rover/