An analysis showed that about 7 tons of garbage may exist on the surface of Mars, which is called the “red planet”.
On the 20th (local time), Kagri Kilik, a lunar researcher and Mars rover at the University of West Virginia, wrote in The Conversation, an online scientific journal, “About 7 tons of garbage on Mars due to 50 years of exploration. robotics You contributed an article titled ‘to reach
This is about 10 tons of mass of all spacecraft launched to Mars so far, minus about 3 tons of currently operational spacecraft and rovers.
According to the United Nations Office for Space (UN OOSA), humanity has continuously attempted the exploration of Mars for the past 50 years and so far, after 14 attempts, 18 artifacts have successfully reached the surface of Mars.
The first successful landing on Mars was the Mars 2 spacecraft, which the Soviet Union landed on Mars in 1971. However, Mars 2 is believed to have been blown away by a Martian storm during the landing and crashed.
Since then, numerous spacecraft have been sent to Mars by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Europe, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Russian and Indian Space Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of China.
However, it turns out that these spacecraft, whether successful or not, are producing a lot of Martian debris in common.
The debris found on the surface of Mars are mainly discarded parts, spacecraft that crashed during landing and fragments of spacecraft that fell from the impact.
In particular, upon entering and landing in the Martian atmosphere, the impact generates numerous fragments, which are blown away by the strong winds that blow on Mars away from the landing site.
The official Twitter account of NASA’s “Persevere Rover” mobile rover posted a photo of a shiny foil-like object sandwiched between rocks on the surface of Mars in June.
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The object was discovered about 2km from the landing site, and investigations revealed that it was a piece of the rover’s thermal protection blanket used when it landed on Mars.
Additionally, Martian debris is often found by rovers.
On the other hand, the debris left on Mars is also considered important because it serves as a milestone for future planetary exploration.
For this reason, scientists are paying attention to the impact of debris on Mars on exploration activities.
NASA is documenting all the debris it finds on the Martian surface and has considered the possibility of problems such as contamination of Mars samples collected by the rover or crashing into a device failure, but has concluded that the probability is low.
(Photo = ‘Nasa Perseverance Rover’ Twitter, NASA / JPL-Caltech)
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