NASA rejoices: Persevering Mars explorer secures rock dust
To achieve this, perseverance had to dig a hole in a piece of rock. “I got it,” a NASA account tweeted on the shopping cart several days ago. And last night The word redemption came, with accompanying photos as evidence: Stone dust was placed in a tube. This tube is sealed and stored in the cart.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, “This is a tremendous achievement and I can’t wait for more amazing discoveries.”
proof of life
The intent is that at some point in the future, the soil sample could be brought back to Earth via another space mission. Among other things, the US space agency wants to know if the material contains evidence that microbes have lived on the Red Planet.
An earlier attempt failed in August. At the time, drilling yielded only some rock powder, but now a sample roughly the thickness of a pencil has been recovered.
The six-wheeled Mars explorer landed in a crater on the planet in late February and soon made its first flight. His work area is Jezero crater where a river would have flowed into a lake billions of years ago, when water was flowing on Mars.
To search for rocks and soil, the explorer is equipped with more than twenty cameras and drills. The device collects dozens of soil samples in tubes. In the year 2028, a European explorer must reach Mars to collect things.
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