It will happen because of a solar conjunction: 2 weeks in silence, NASA stop to communications with Mars.
NASA's researches on Mars never stop making people talk and evidently this happens even when, as it is going to happen, they will be temporarily suspended for force majeure causes.
The news about the extraction of a rock sample that, in the next years, will be transported on our planet for a series of studies, have been welcomed - here on Earth - with a big echo. Absolutely impressive, then, the discovery of how the heart of the Red Planet is made. The key to decipher the mystery were the seismic waves.
Now, however, this stream of exciting research seems to have to observe a hiatus. Why is that?
Because we're cutting off communications with Mars
Richard Stephenson, who oversees Deep Space Network, which allows NASA to communicate with the Perseverance rover on Mars, explained that "we're starting to see the first signs of Mars' solar conjunction with Perseverance, observing a slight degradation in its signal level directed toward Earth."
Specifically, it happens that solar particles interfere with signals sent from the rover to Earth and vice versa. This is a temporary "blackout", so a moment of silence that can be recovered later.
What is a solar conjunction and when will it happen
Between Mars and Earth, two neighboring planets, the solar conjunction will occur between 2 and 14 October: moving each along its orbit, the Red Planet and the Blue one will be separated from the Sun. Therefore, it will be a temporary situation, which will return as soon as the two planets will be in positions, with respect to each other, more favorable to communication.
Among the various theories that have fascinated space scholars, also those concerning the possibility of finding traces of life on the fourth planet of the Solar System. For example, there are those who, in some photos, have discovered the presence of mushrooms in the furrows left on the ground by the rover. There was also who claimed that life on Mars could also take the form of an ecosystem of microbial organisms, whose survival would be possible thanks to the radioactivity present under the surface.
Giuseppe Giordano