Late on Thursday night, South African time, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa’s) latest Mars rover, Perseverance, successfully landed on the Red Planet. It touched down, as planned, in the 45 km-wide Jezero Crater, which lies on the western edge of a giant impact basin named Isidis Planitia. A primary mission for Perseverance is to hunt for fossils of ancient Martian microscopic life, and 3.5-billion years ago Jezero contained a river delta and was full of water. …