Perseverance Rover Launch Will Be Out of This World
The launch of the latest Mars Rover is coming to a screen near you. This Thursday, July 30, starting bright and early at 4:50 am Pacific Standard Time, you can be a part of American aerospace history, and watch the livestream of the launch as the Perseverance sets off for Mars. The winning name for the new rover was submitted by a middle school student from Virginia in NASA’s “Name the Rover” essay contest. According to NASA, “The Mars 2020 spacecraft with its Perseverance Rover will launch on an Atlas V-541 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The Atlas V is one of the largest rockets available for interplanetary flight. This is the same type of rocket that launched the InSight and Curiosity to Mars.” Similar to the Curiosity Rover, which was built by Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Perseverance will perform science experiments and send back more information about the planet to scientists on Earth.
If you enjoyed learning about Mars and the work that JPL does while under the inflatable planetarium at the library over the past few summers, please join us virtually this Thursday, along with millions of other spectators around the world, and experience this awe-inspiring launch from the comfort of your home. In addition to the livestream of the launch, you will find many other interstellar resources for your family to enjoy. Find out more about the rover by watching the videos all about the Perseverance and its scientific goals or checking out the schedule of other related livestreams of NASA events. You’ll also find some STEAM projects to do with the whole family, whether building a cardboard rover, making RoverView 3D viewing glasses, or even using Scratch coding to create a Mars rover game. You can attend a storytime in space by viewing videos of astronauts on the International Space Station reading stories about traveling to Mars. You will also find a related list of space-themed books for children of all ages you can virtually check out and share.
The launch of the Perseverance Rover promises to be an extraordinary event, and although we can’t physically gather at the Library to celebrate it, we hope you’ll enjoy these astronomical resources as the library community comes together virtually to observe the best of human ingenuity and determination on full cosmic display.