Mission
The rover could have been the first mission since the Viking program landers of the 1970s to specifically look for the chemistry associated with life (biosignatures), such as carbon-based compounds along with molecules involving both sulfur and nitrogen. The mission strategy was to search for habitable zones by "following the water" and "finding the carbon." In particular, it was to conduct detailed analysis of geologic environments identified by the 2012 Mars Science Laboratory as being conducive to life on Mars and biosignatures, past and present. Such environments might include fine-grained sedimentary layers, hot spring mineral deposits, icy layers near the poles, or sites such as gullies where liquid water once flowed or may continue to seep into soils from melting ice packs.
Read more about this topic: Astrobiology Field Laboratory
Famous quotes containing the word mission:
“Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth. Divine Providence has a mission for her children to fulfill; though a mission unrecognized by political economists. There is ever a moral balance preserved in the universe, like the vibrations of the pendulum. The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)
“The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story—a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)