Explanation:
What's the best way to explore Mars?
Perhaps there is no single best way, but a newly demonstrated method shows tremendous
promise: flight.
Powered flight has the promise to search vast regions and
scout out particularly interesting areas for more detailed investigation.
Yesterday, for the
first
time, powered flight was demonstrated on
Mars by a small helicopter named
Ingenuity.
In the
featured
video, Ingenuity is
first imaged by the
Perseverance rover
sitting quietly on the Martian surface.
After a few seconds,
Ingenuity's long rotors begin to spin, and a few seconds
after that -- history is made as Ingenuity actually takes off, hovers for a few seconds,
and then lands safely.
More tests of
Ingenuity's
unprecedented ability are planned over the next few months.
Flight
may help humanity
better explore not only Mars,
but
Saturn's moon
Titan
over the next few decades.
