Space exploration | NASA dropped ten rock samples from its rover on the Martian plain – their search is already being planned

Chopsticks lies on the plain at exactly ten o’clock.

You can’t tell from far whether they are bamboo. Flashlights? Or maybe medical syringes?

The riddle gets more complicated when you know that they were dropped by a four-wheeled traveler from his udder. And still on the surface of a foreign planet.

This has got to be a scene from a B grade science fiction movie!

But the view is most certainly real, about 159 million kilometers from Earth.

February in the early part of Mars, a quadrilateral research robot Perseverance lightened his weight a little.

It dropped a titanium sample tube on the surface of Mars ten times in a row. Each one has a special stone sample.

Perseverance has photographed thousands of Martian rocks during its two years of exploration, and also studied their composition.

If the rock was really interesting to NASA’s air traffic control, the rover drilled the rock on command. A sample about the thickness of a pencil came off.

After drilling, a small stone saw cut the stone to a few centimeters. A robotic arm then placed it in a titanium cylinder.

It was sealed and moved with a robotic arm to the quad’s trunk, as part of the stone collection.

February at the beginning it was time to drop the cargo on the surface of Mars. The locations of each sample were carefully recorded, as dust could soon cover the rocks.

The hope is to bring the samples to Earth in the 2030s. Ten samples as different as possible are part of the plan, but only plan B.

The hope is that Perseverance would still be moving in the 2030s. Others would then be waiting for a ten-year-old sealed sample in its opening.

Mönkijja has already started assembling this new kit. Perseverance still has more than 20 empty titanium sample tubes in its bowels.

In the year In 2033, plan A would come true, the original one:

In the plan, Perseverance will transfer those samples directly to the lander, which NASA and the European Space Agency ESA will send to retrieve them.

In the center of the lander is a small rocket, which will lift off with samples into the orbit of Mars. There, the samples are directed to the ship, from which the capsule with the samples is released for the flight to Earth.

The NASA video showshow the complicated operation should go.

Perseverance uumen had 15 samples before the drip in early February, a dozen of which have stones.

In the other three tubes, two contain Martian surface material and its dust. One sample has been accidentally taken only from the Martian gas ring when the specimen fell from the pipe.

Five other stone samples were already ready in Uumen. They have been brought to Mars from Earth. The stones help determine whether the samples remained pure virgin throughout the operation.

If there were to be found, then maybe it would be known that they are from Mars. And that would be bad news.

When the samples arrive in a capsule to Earth, Nasa distributes them to laboratories around the world.

A closer look at the rocks may eventually confirm whether or not there was even microbial life on Mars.

The riddle doesn’t seem to be solved by remote experiments on the surface of Mars, i.e. without humans.

There are various research equipment and ATVs sent to the surface of Mars since 1971, and ten times successfully. Many experiments and searches have been carried out, but no definite answers have been obtained.

The Martian Perseverance has been flying in the Jezero crater for a little over two years.

On its way, it has traveled about 14.6 kilometers and taken more than 166,000 pictures with its numerous cameras. That’s what NASA, the US space administration, said when it celebrated Perseverance’s 2-year anniversary on February 17.

In two years, Perseverance’s radar has imaged below the Martian surface more than 676,000 times. Its laser has burned its rays into rocky surfaces more than 230,000 times.

In addition, the rover’s microphones have recorded the sounds of Mars 662 times. You can mostly hear the hum of the Martian winds in them, but there are other sounds as well. Perseverance’s wheels, for example, rattle metallically.

THAN as a crown above all the equipment is its own small helicopter, Ingenuity. It has already taken to its wings 43 times since its maiden flight on April 19, 2021.

The copter was made very gently. Only seven flights were planned for it. It flew the second longest distance, i.e. 390 meters, just recently, on February 16.

The odometers of the air traffic control show that the copter has traveled a distance of almost 8.9 kilometers in the sky of the red planet.

At first, the engineers weren’t even sure if the 1.8-kilogram Ingenuity would take off. Would its rotors catch gases in the thin atmosphere of Mars?

The copter took off and this is how aviation history was made. For the first time, a motorized aircraft flew in a controlled manner in the airspace of another celestial body.

Helicopters will certainly be used more in Mars research from now on.

Next Perseverance rises on the edge of a 45-kilometer diameter crater. On the way, it describes the layers of the Jezero crater walls.

Scientists still hope that they will find signs of life. Jezero was once a river estuary where water flowed. And where there is water, there is usually life.

Perseverance was designed to last two Martian years.

The end is not yet near: one Martian year lasts 687 Earth days. In all, Perseverance should last two Martian years, or just under 1,400 days.

There is now only a little more than half of the journey, and it may well get more time.

For example, Perseverance’s predecessor and smaller rover, Curiosity, received a time extension from NASA. It has been traveling on the surface of Mars for more than ten years since November 2011, a total of almost 30 kilometers.

The rovers will not meet, as Curiosity lies far from Perseverance, about 3,700 kilometers away.

In the end, dust, stuck wheels or, at the latest, a lack of money stop the progress of even these ATVs.