Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Not only Earth, humans also throw garbage on Mars. More than 15,000 pounds of space debris have been found on the Red Planet’s surface left over from the past 50 years.
It was Cagri Kilic, a postdoctoral researcher in robotics at West Virginia University, who calculated the number of debris on Mars.
To calculate this, Kilic adds up the mass of the entire spacecraft that was sent to Mars (22,000 pounds) and subtracts the weight of the spacecraft currently operating on the surface (6,306 pounds).
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According to Kilic, the debris came from three different sources: discarded hardware, a sleeping spacecraft, and a crashed spacecraft.
It will be very difficult to get the average amount [potongan puing per pesawat ruang angkasa] because all spacecraft have their own special requirements, ”Kilic said News weekTuesday (27/9/2022).
For this, he continued, the total mass will be different. However, it can be said that a spacecraft that falls to the surface will produce more waste.
The spacecraft that landed on Mars discarded pieces of their modules as they descended to the surface, with pieces of heat shield and parachute detaching and hovering a significant distance in the Martian wind.
Additionally, downed planes can catch fire at the entrance or hit the ground at high speed, which again results in debris flying in multiple directions.
So far, humans have sent 18 man-made objects to Mars on 14 missions, according to the United Nations Office for Space Affairs.
The first mission to land on the Red Planet occurred in 1971 when the Soviet Union landed its Mars 2 orbiter.
Since then, several spacecraft have landed on the surface of Mars, both successfully and unsuccessfully.
All of these missions inadvertently left scattered debris on the planet, which is now visible to surface rovers.
In mid-August, the Mars Perseverance rover found a lot of trash thrown away during its landing.
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Does NASA Find Garbage on Mars, Coming from Earth?
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