Mars Exploration: Past, Present, and Future While the orbiters continue to show us more of the planet's cold, capricious present, the landers are slated to go to places that tell the story of an older Mars. Beagle 2 is targeted at Isidis Planitia, a large equatorial basin. Spirit and Opportunity are headed for regions where water may have shaped the geology near the surface billions of years ago. According to infrared readings, Opportunity's landing site in Terra Meridiani shows traces of a form of the mineral hematite that, on Earth, is created typically only in the presence of water. Studies by Nathalie Cabrol and others (including her husband, Edmond Grin) argue that Gusev crater, the landing site for Spirit, was once a basin flooded with water from Ma'adim Vallis, a huge channel that empties into it. The bottom of the basin—the rover's intended landing site—may have been a lake bed more than once as long-lost waters came and went.
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