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The Next Mission To Mars: NASA Rover Will Search For Signs Of Ancient Life

This artist's rendition depicts NASA's Mars 2020 rover studying a Mars rock outrcrop. Photo: NASA
This artist's rendition depicts NASA's Mars 2020 rover studying a Mars rock outrcrop. Photo: NASA

This summer, NASA will launch a 2,000 pound robot to the surface of Mars. The Perseverance rover will search for ancient signs of life and prep samples of Martian rocks to send back home.

For an overview of the mission, we’ll speak with Jake Robins. He’s the host of the podcast WeMartians and has been following the development of the rover as it readies for its launch from Kennedy Space Center.

Then, an asteroid zipped dramatically close to Earth last week. While it wasn’t a threat to our planet, it has me wondering how do we detect and protect from future threats? We’ll pose that question to our panel of experts on this week’s “I’d Like to Know” segment.

Brendan Byrne is Central Florida Public Media's Assistant News Director, managing the day-to-day operations of the newsroom, editing daily news stories, and managing the organization's internship program. Byrne also hosts Central Florida Public Media's weekly radio show and podcast "Are We There Yet?" which explores human space exploration, and the weekly news roundup podcast "The Wrap."