A single eyelash could ruin this mission searching for life on Mars 👽 Engineer Charlie Roe shows us some key features of the Rosalind Franklin Mars Rover. Join us tomorrow for the third and final lecture. Catch up on iPlayer: bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002p22s/royal-institution-christmas-lectures-2025-maggie-aderinpocock-is-there-life-beyond-earth-2-searching-the-solar-system | Royal Institution of Great Britain

On February 18, 2021, NASA successfully landed the Perseverance rover on Mars after traveling about 471 million kilometers from Earth. As it entered the Martian atmosphere at nearly 20,000 km/h, a powerful heat shield protected it from extreme heat. A supersonic parachute then deployed to slow it down. What followed was the intense “Seven Minutes of Terror.” Perseverance separated from the parachute, fired its rockets, and was carefully lowered to the surface using the sky crane system. Once the

NASA’s Opportunity rover, which landed on Mars in 2004, was built for a 90-day mission but far exceeded expectations, exploring the Red Planet for nearly 15 years. It traveled 28 miles (45 km), examined rocks and craters, and sent thousands of images that reshaped our understanding of Mars. The mission ended in 2018 when a massive dust storm blocked sunlight from its solar panels, cutting off communication. After more than a thousand failed attempts to reconnect, NASA declared the mission over i