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In 2018, NASA mission planners selected the Jezero Crater as the future landing site of the Perseverance <\/em>rover. This crater was a natural choice, as it was once an ancient lake bed, as evidenced by the delta fan at its western edge. On Earth, these features form in the presence of flowing water that gradually deposits sediment over time. Combined with the fact that the Jezero Crater\u2019s delta feature is rich in clays, this makes the region a prime target to search for biosignatures \u2013 evidence of past (and maybe present) life on Mars!<\/p>\n In recent news, NASA announced that the Perseverance <\/em>rover had reached the top of Jezero Crater\u2019s rim at a location the science team calls \u201cLookout Hill.\u201d The rover spent the previous three and a half months climbing the rim, covering a distance of 500 vertical meters (1,640 vertical feet) and making science observations along the way. Now that it has crested the rim, Perseverance <\/em>can begin what the mission team calls its \u201cNorthern Rim\u201d campaign. Over the next year, the rover is expected to drive 6.4 km (4 mi) and visit up to four sites of interest where it will obtain geological samples.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since it landed in the Jezero Crater in February 2021, Perseverance has completed four science campaigns. This includes the \u201cCrater Floor,\u201d \u201cFan Front,\u201d \u201cUpper Fan,\u201d and \u201cMargin Unit\u201d based on where the rover was obtaining samples from. During the first campaign, the rover visited features around its landing site \u2013 like the M\u00e1az formation \u2013 where it obtained several rock and atmospheric samples, and some witness samples for contamination assessment. The two campaigns that followed saw the rover explore different sections of Jezero\u2019s delta fan and obtain samples of rock and clay.<\/p>\n \n