Scientists are scrambling to find an alternative landing site for a long-armed robot set to launch this summer on a mission to dig into Mars’ icy north pole to search for signs of primitive life.
The original landing spot was nixed after images beamed back by the eagle-eyed Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter unexpectedly showed scores of bus-sized boulders littered over old crater rims on flat plains.
The gigantic rocks pose a danger to NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander, which unlike the rolling twin rovers, will be stationary, mission principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona said during a news teleconference Thursday.