What is the landing site of the Perseverance rover?

The Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater. NASA selected this roughly 45-kilometer-wide Martian crater because it once held a lake and preserves a prominent ancient river delta—an especially promising place to search for geological evidence of past microbial life.

Perseverance touched down on February 18, 2021, as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. Its landing site was later named Octavia E. Butler Landing, honoring the science-fiction author, but Jezero Crater is the canonical answer to the question about the rover’s landing site. The rover’s companion helicopter, Ingenuity, also operated from Jezero.

Jezero is more than a simple impact crater. Its delta contains layered sediments deposited by flowing water, while channels, shoreline features, clays, carbonates, and other minerals preserve clues about the crater’s wet history. Perseverance has also found igneous rocks on the crater floor, showing that the site’s geological story includes volcanic processes as well as water. Gale Crater, by contrast, is the landing site of the Curiosity rover.