10 Fridays are awesome.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of fake news.

But NASA's newest voyage of discovery isn't a rover that launched last July 30th, was scheduled to arrive on Mars yesterday, and scientists were hoping that the perseverance mission would help them figure out if life was ever present on the Red Planet.

The mission's cost is $27 billion.

It was scheduled to last two years.

If all goes as planned during that time, the Perseverance Rover is set to travel 15 miles, studying Mars climate and geology and collecting samples of Martian soil that could one day be brought back to Earth if another mission succeeds in sending a spacecraft to pick them up.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

The rover first had to undergo in extensive check out period, a kind of booting up on Mars.

It had unfolded download software.

It's got to deploy a $23 million drone helicopter whose purpose is to find out if powered chopper flight is possible on Mars, and before any of that could happen, perseverance had to make a safe landing on the Red Planet a preview of a perilous descent on the Red Planet After months traveling through space, it's what NASA describes as seven minutes of terror theme US space agencies.

Perseverance Mission plunges into the Martian atmosphere.

It over 19,000 kilometers an hour.

It breaks with tremendous force, lurching downwards as it endures temperatures of more than 1000 degrees Celsius.

Theun.

It deploys a parachute, and at just the right moment, it releases of rover retro rocketing towards a treacherous terrain That all has to happen in about seven minutes, and it all has to happen autonomously.

This is one of the most difficult maneuvers that we dio in the space business.

You know, almost 50% of the spacecraft that have been sent to the surface of Mars have failed, and so we know we have our work cut out for us.

If the daring landing succeeds, NASA's Perseverance Rover will touch down at Jess Zero Crater, the site of a Martian lake more than 3.5 billion years ago.

Their perseverance will help prepare for human life in the future and search for signs of ancient life of the past.

You will also collect rock samples that will hopefully return to Earth for the very first time.

The two year mission is unlike any other made possible by discoveries from Nasa's four other rovers on Mars.

Our journey has Bean from following the water to seeing whether this planet was habitable, so finding complex chemicals.

And now we're at the advent, often entirely new phase returning samples, an aspirational goal that has bean with the science community for decades.

Perseverance also promises new perspectives of the red planet.

The Rovers, microphones and 23 cameras can share sights and sounds never seen or heard before.

Also along for the ride, a drone sized helicopter named Ingenuity.

It'll be the first to try flying on another planet.

The new technology may help direct the Perseverance Rover, or even be a scout for future probes, as NASA's latest mission to Mars charts new realms of exploration.

But as you heard a moment ago, getting the rover down safely is the tricky part.

Mars is about 127 million miles away from Earth right now.

It takes 11 minutes for radio signals to travel from Earth to Mars, and the Perseverance Rover landing process was set to happen over seven minutes.

That's why it had to happen autonomously without scientists manually making adjustments on its way down.

Yesterday evening, NASA said that perseverance appeared to land safely on the Red Planet various spacecraft that NASA and the European Space Agency have in orbit.

Overmars were set to fly over there over and check up on its health CNN dot com.

We'll have the latest info on the mission status.

12th Trivia.

What is America's coldest city outside of Alaska?

Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Fargo, North Dakota International Falls, Minnesota or Marquette, Michigan Once you get outside Fairbanks, Alaska, the coldest city in the U.

S is Grand Forks, North Dakota.

A historic blast of Arctic air is finally moving out of the United States after unleashing a Siris of ice and snow storms across the country.

For those who are ready for winter to end, the good news is that forecasters expect the jet stream toe lift to the north, and what that means is that millions of Americans could feel warmer temperatures by the weekend.

But the hard hit state of Texas is still reeling, with many people still without electricity and or running water following a Siris of deadly winter storms there and mawr.

Cold, snowy weather could still be ahead for the northern Plains states, the upper Midwest and the Northeast, which is typical this time of year.

There's some fascinating and frozen side effects toe all this.

Here's CNN 10 Contributor Tyler Molden.

I'm sure you've heard all about blizzards in the polar vortex, Carl, but what about ice pancakes, bites or jams?

Well, it's a thing, and I'm suddenly hungry, too.

But these are unappetizing and can cause some real serious issues.

During the winter, an ice jam occurs when pieces of floating ice build up and block the flow of water in rivers and streams and turn, causing the water to back up, potentially leading to flooding.

For example, earlier this month, the National Weather Service in Detroit had an issue of flood warning because an ice jam was causing water to flood homes and businesses, which could only be broken up by the Canadian and US coastguards.

Ice pancakes tend to only be seen in the Arctic, but when the temperature drops below zero in the lower 48 for a few days, like what we're dealing with this week.

Well, we can see it, too.

It occurs when a body of water starts to form ice.

Chunks of ice will bump against each other, creating elliptical shaped dis with round edges, giving each one a flat round appearance.

Hence the name ice pancakes.

Ice balls are more common than pancakes.

You can actually see these every winter near shorelines of colder climates.

These formed by getting caught in the crashing waves near the edge of a beach, forcing them to continually spend over and over and over leading to um, or spherical look.

Lastly, and this one is probably my favorite ice volcanoes.

Ice volcanoes form over legs by waves, forcing water or slush to erupt high in the sky through mounds of ice.

It made for quite the scene last year off of Lake Michigan, while we're on the subject of volcanoes but talking about the hot kind now, what's probably the world's oldest continuously active volcano erupted this week.

Mount Etna once again put on a fireworks show in the Italian island of Sicily.

Lava fountain sprayed, magma flowed.

Ash rained down on the surrounding region.

There were no reports of serious injuries or damage.

But imagine waking up at one o'clock in the morning and thinking it's raining outside when what you hear is actually ash falling on your roof.

That's how our friend Sean McCarthy described it.

He teaches with the Department of Defense education activity in Sicily, and he sent us these pictures yesterday.

Close up views of the magnificent Mt.

Etna Super Swim Brothers kind of sounds like an underwater version of Super Mario Brothers.

But on the Bismarck High School Boys Swim Team in North Dakota, 12 of the 26 athletes are brothers, as in brothers.

Specifically, we're talking about Braxton, Isaac, Austin, Garrett, Bennett, Bryce Jackson, Connor, Josiah, Micah, Blake and Max.

It's like cheaper by the dozen in the pool and the competitive spirits high because none of these guys wants to lose to his brother.

Does that threaten their brotherly love?

They're still their brothers keeper.

And while the goggles might have them wondering, O brother, where art thou?

They're still there to help each brother bear the brothers, Um, burden of competition, saying, Brother, let me be your shelter.

With the bond of brothers flowing strongly through this band of brothers.

Oh, brother, today's shoutout goes out to Qs i International School of Key She now Moldova.

Thank you so much for watching and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

I'm Carla Zeus for CNN.

Yeah, yeah.