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The NASA rover has landed on Mars and sent the first photos from its surface
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The Perseverance rover, which has been on Mars for just over half a year, has already started all the stages of its mission planned by NASA. At the beginning of August, scientists undertook one of the most important tasks, i.e. drilling a hole in the rock and collecting and securing a sample that is to be delivered to Earth in the future (as part of another mission).
This play failed the first time. NASA discovered that after collecting the rock material, for unknown reasons, it did not end up in a titanium test tube. The space agency started analyzing the problem and decided to make another attempt. This time, however, a different object was chosen from which the material was taken.
The Perseverance rover took a soil sample from Mars
The rock selected for research was named “Rochette” and is visible in the main photo of this text. On September 1, Perseverance drilled a hole in it (also visible in the photo above) and took material for containment. For the next few days, the scientists tried to determine whether the test tube actually contained enough powdered rock.
For this purpose, the rover’s cameras took several photos of the container. On one of them (below), inside the drill (at the same time it drills a hole and takes rock material), the collected sample is visible. As explained by NASA, the rock is inside the gold core and has a diameter slightly larger than a pencil.
Photo of a sample taken from Mars taken on September 1, 2021 foot. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Unfortunately, the next photos did not confirm her presence due to the lack of sunlight. So the researchers decided to wait with the announcement of success. Until now. On Sunday, NASA admitted that the sample had been collected correctly.
Success was confirmed after receiving the latest photo (below) sent by the Perseverance rover:
The scientists will now begin the initial sample analysis and then close and secure the test tube. The same will happen with the rock material from the next 42 wells that NASA wants to drill. The Perseverance rover will then leave the secured material on Mars, and in the future, the US agency and ESA plan to send a mission to Mars to collect the samples and return them to Earth with them.
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