NASA's Perseverance Lands on Mars, Here's a Look at Rovers That Came Before It
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In 1997, NASA sent the first rover to Mars - Sojourner.
Soujourner explored an area of Mars near its landing site called Ares Vallis. Scientists were interested in this area because it looked like the site of an ancient flood. Image credits: Wikimedia Commons. - 2/4
Spirit and Opportunity are twin rovers - both carried all of the same scientific instruments. And each was about the size of a golf cart.
Spirit landed in a region called Gusev Crater. Scientists wanted to explore the crater because they thought it could have held water long ago. From pictures taken by satellites, scientists thought it looked like several large rivers flowed into Gusev Crater.
Opportunity landed on the other side of Mars in an area called Meridiani Planum. This region was nice because it was a flat, safe spot for the rover to land.
Image Credits: NASA. - 3/4
Curiosity is the largest robot to ever land on another planet. It is about the size of a small SUV. Because Curiosity is so big, it also has bigger wheels than the previous rovers. This helps it to roll over rocks and sand without getting stuck. However, even on a long driving day, it still only travels about 660 feet.
Image Credits: NASA. 
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NASA's Mars Perseverance landed today. The rover's payload also includes demonstration projects that could help pave the way for eventual human exploration of Mars, including a device to convert the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere into pure oxygen.
