Lynn Carter

Whereas if you go to this site, you're stuck in this crater.

Most likely, maybe they can find a way out, but probably not.

The rover uses nuclear power again, just like Curiosity.

And the problem with those rovers is that there's a limited time frame for that to work.

So solar panels, we've been really lucky with, you know, Spirit and Opportunity went forever and it's because the solar panels kept getting dusted off by wind storms.

You know, the solar panels just kept going and going and going and the rovers just kept going until they would finally break down.

But these rovers using the RTGs, there's a finite time to that energy source and when it's gone, then the mission is over.

So they probably won't last for like 10 years.

So we don't have an unlimited amount of time to traverse around places.

And also this mission will be pretty focused on sampling because that's the big goal.

So that's the next radar that's going to Mars.

Another thing that will be fun to do is use this imaging radar instead.

And this is an image that's taken from the Arecibo radar in Puerto Rico.

I've been thinking a lot about Puerto Rico recently for obvious reasons.

But this is an image that was taken using the radar system there.

And you can see all these lava flows.

So these are the Tharsis volcanoes.

This is Olympus Mons up here.

And these are all lava flows, and they don't look like this visually.

Mars doesn't look like this visually because you're seeing into the subsurface here.