Media Affairs Specialist, JPL, Marina Jurica, moderates a NASA Perseverance rover press briefing about the search for ancient life at Mars and about samples to be brought back to Earth on a future mission, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The Perseverance Mars rover is due to land on Mars Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. A key objective for Perseverances mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planets geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.