Precious samples from Mars have been collected. Now it’s up to Congress to get them back.
Astronomy
By |
Jonathan Lunine
,
CNN
3/18/2024
Clues about our planet’s ability to support life might come from Mars, writes Jonathan Lunine , the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences, in a CNN op-ed .
“Since 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover, designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), has been collecting samples to be returned to Earth in a technologically daring mission called Mars Sample Return (MSR) that is currently under development,” Lunine writes in the piece . “And yet, the political storms that have hit Washington, DC, threaten to leave those valuable samples stranded on Mars, by giving NASA far less than it needs to design and build the spacecraft that will return the samples. Unless Congress restores that funding, scientists may never see them.”
Read the story on the CNN website
More News from A&S
Government
7/21/2025
Cornell Chronicle
Montclair Film/Creative Commons license 2.0
Stephen Colbert
Media
7/18/2025
A&S Communications
Sreang Hok/Cornell University
Reading on Libe Slope
Alumni authors
7/18/2025
Cornellians
Credit: bagus/Adobe Stock
An illustration of a double-walled membrane formed by lipid and protein molecules.
Chemistry and Chemical Biology
7/17/2025
View all news
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Perseverance rover exploring Jezero Crater
Related articles
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Jake Turner, NASA Hubble/Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow in astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences and part of the Carl Sagan Institute, is a science adviser on a radio telescope made of four antennas that each extend to eight feet long and are packed into an eight-inch canister for launch.
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Jake Turner, NASA Hubble/Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow in astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences and part of the Carl Sagan Institute, is a science adviser on a radio telescope made of four antennas that each extend to eight feet long and are packed into an eight-inch canister for launch.
Astronomy
2/14/2024
Cornell Chronicle
NASA-JPL-ASU/Provided
NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance poses in a planetary selfie last September with the formation known as “Rochette.”
NASA-JPL-ASU/Provided
NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance poses in a planetary selfie last September with the formation known as “Rochette.”
Astronomy
2/17/2022
Cornell Chronicle
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
The paper advances understanding of life in the context of other complex evolving systems. The image shows the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
The paper advances understanding of life in the context of other complex evolving systems. The image shows the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Astronomy
10/16/2023
A&S Communications
Related department or program
Related people
David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences Emeritus
Astronomy, CCAPS, Carl Sagan Institute
