Extraterrestrial life of primitive life near the Rio Tinto river in Spain. NASA officials soon distanced NASA from the scientists' claims, and Stoker herself backed off from her initial assertions. Though such methane findings are still debated, support among some scientists for the existence of life on Mars exists. In November 2011, NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory that landed the "Curiosity" rover on Mars. It is designed to assess the past and present habitability on Mars using a variety of scientific instruments. The rover landed on Mars at Gale Crater in August 2012. The Gaia hypothesis stipulates that any planet with
Mars 2020 that were under consideration for Mars 2020. A workshop was held on 8–10 February 2017 in Pasadena, California, to discuss these sites, with the goal of narrowing down the list to three sites for further consideration. The selected sites are: In November 2018, it was announced that Jezero crater was chosen as the planned landing site for Mars 2020 rover. A key mission requirement for this rover is that it must help prepare NASA for its Mars sample-return mission (MSR) campaign, which is needed before any crewed mission takes place. Such effort would require three additional vehicles: an orbiter, a