What Answer awaits from the Nasa's 2020 rover about Mars

Exactly a year from now, a capsule will come hurtling through the atmosphere of Mars with the Americans' next big rover. If it survives the "seven minutes of terror" that describe its descent to the surface, the new robot promises a very different mission to all those that have gone before it.

Because although Mars 2020 (a new name is coming) looks like a simple copy of the Curiosity vehicle of 2012, its goals take a decisive turn towards answering the most fundamental of questions: is there - or has there ever been - life on the Red Planet?

Recent investigations have concentrated on characterising the "habitability" of Mars.

That's to say, these prior missions asked only if past conditions were conducive to biology. A less direct approach.

Mars 2020, on the other hand, will be engaged in an explicit hunt for life's traces.

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Undeniably it'll be a difficult quest. Evidence for life on the early Earth always attracts a degree of scepticism, even controversy, and laboratory equipment the size of a large room is often required to back up a claim.

So how will people react if a rover finds something intriguing imprinted in billions-of-years-old rock on another planet?

2020 mission scientist Jim Bell from Arizona State University is candid in his response: "We can make a claim about a biosignature, but it's not clear to me anyone would believe us," he said.

"So, let's bring the samples back. So if those extraordinary claims are made, they can be verified."

This then is the strategy for Mars 2020: Find something remarkable and cache it for later return to one of those big Earth laboratories.

Source: bbc.com