Why is NASA landing in Meridiani Planum?
While some areas, such as rugged canyon floors or volcano calderas might be exciting to explore, they’re just too difficult and dangerous to land on. The landing sites chosen for the Rovers provide the right combination of safety and interesting science. The landing site falls within an area equivalent in size to the state of Ohio that displays the spectral signature of the iron oxide mineral gray hematite. This was a major discovery of the Thermal Emission Spectrometer instrument, because on earth, hematite usually forms in conjunction with water.
