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NASA Mars Mission Connects With Bosnian Town Today, a letter from NASA's
director of Mars Exploration, James Watzin, was presented to the mayor of Jezero, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
honoring the connection between the small Balkan town and Jezero Crater, the
landing site for the Mars 2020 rover. U.S. Ambassador Eric Nelson delivered the
letter to Mayor Snezana Ruzucic in the town, population 1,100.
"It takes an international team of
experts to create and support a mission with the complexity and ambition of
Mars 2020," said Watzin. "I am proud that we can now include the citizens
of Jezero, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as honorary members of the 2020 team.
Together, we will explore one of the most scientifically captivating as well as
serene locations on Mars."
The linkage
between Mars and the municipality of Jezero began with a decision by the
International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2007: That's when the organization gave
the name Jezero Crater to a 28-mile-wide
(45-kilometer-wide) crater on the western
edge of Isidis Planitia, a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator.
"The IAU choses
to name craters with scientific significance after small towns and villages of
the world," explained Ken Farley, project scientist for Mars 2020 from Caltech
in Pasadena, California.
In November
2018, 11 years after Jezero Crater got its name, NASA designated Jezero Crater the
landing site of Mars 2020.
"I couldn't
be happier with both our future home on Mars and the location it was named
after," said Farley.
Jezero township
is situated on the Veliko Plivsko Lake entrance to the Pliva River. Like its Earthly namesake, the
Red Planet's Jezero Crater was once home to a river-fed lake. Mars 2020 scientists
believe this ancient river delta could have collected and preserved organic molecules
and other potential signs of microbial life from the water and sediments that
flowed into the crater billions of years ago. The mission plans to take samples
of the area, caching them in tubes that will be retrieved and returned to Earth
in a future mission.
Watzin
elaborated in his letter to the people of Jezero:
"The Mars Exploration Program at NASA would
like to recognize your town for its connection to this upcoming mission, and we
hope that you will follow the endeavors of the Mars 2020 rover as it makes this
journey. The rover was designed to further our understanding of the
possibilities for life beyond Earth and to advance new capabilities in exploration
technology. Once returned to Earth, the samples from Jezero Crater will provide
a wealth of information about Mars and our solar system for generations to
come."
Watzin is
confident the thrill of exploration and discovery can extend the tens of millions
of miles from an intriguing crater on Mars to a small community in Southeastern
Europe. More than 300 citizens and students of Jezero and two adjacent municipalities,
Jajce and Mrkonji? Grad, shared their enthusiasm for the mission during the event
with the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Army Civil Affairs team. Students from both
schools performed a play, "We Are Going to Mars," and experimented
with robots provided by the U.S. Embassy.
"Part of NASA's mission is to inspire
scientists, engineers and explorers," said Lori Glaze, director of the
Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Jezero's
connection with the Mars 2020 mission may very well inspire students in Jezero,
and elsewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to pursue an education in the sciences."
Mars
2020 will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in July of
2020. It will land at the small Bosnian and Herzegovinian town's namesake, Jezero
Crater, on Feb. 18, 2021.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is
building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science
Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
NASA will use Mars 2020 and other missions, including to the Moon, to prepare
for human exploration of the Red Planet. The agency intends to establish a
sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis
lunar exploration plans.
To
submit your name to travel to Mars with NASA's 2020 mission and obtain a souvenir
boarding pass to the Red Planet, go here by Sept. 30, 2019:
https://go.nasa.gov/Mars2020Pass
For more information about the mission, go to:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
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