Scientists finally know what happened to the mysterious endangered rock monster of Perseverance

NASA thinks it knows why Perserverance first appeared Mars stone monster vanish.

like a living room Previously mentionedEarlier this month, scientists attempted to take samples from the Red Planet and drop them into one of the 43 collection tubes on the Perseverance spacecraft. At first, everything seemed to be going well: the rover dug a small finger-sized hole in the rock, and the photos showed a clear hole in that rock. But a follow-up scan found there was no rock sample in the tube.

What happened?

After several days of analyzing the data and images from the probe, NASA’s persistence team determined that the rock had most likely collapsed into “little fragments.”

Louise Gandora, chief sampling system engineer, wrote in: NASA blog post Wednesday. “It is likely that the required base material is either downhole, in the cutting station, or a combination of both. “

Ghostly tail music.

Jandoura explains: “The scientific and engineering teams believe that the uniqueness of this rock and its physical properties are the main factor in the difficulty of extracting a core. “We are therefore heading to the next sampling site south of Sitah, the furthest point at this point in our scientific campaign.”

Perseverance first selected a boulder in Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide crater and ancient lake that scientists say is a great place to look for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars. Jandoura said it turned out that the rock “did not cooperate this time”.

“It reminds me again of the nature of exploration,” Jandoura said. “A final result is never guaranteed, no matter how well prepared you are. Despite this result, science and technology have made progress.

Perseverance is a sampling mission, which means that Perseverance will collect and store samples of Martian rock and soil, which will eventually be sent back to Earth. Obtaining the sample is clearly the key to this mission, which is why NASA scientists tested a “shake roller-topper”, according to Gandora, when the sample was not present.

return example: missions Extreme special In fact, because of their cost, there was no mission to bring back a monster from another planet. While the mission to return samples from Mars is not yet fully planned, scientists at NASA say if all goes well, we could return samples from Mars to Earth by 2031.

Hopefully they can get a sample in South Sittah next time in September.

“Based on the rover and helicopter So far, we are likely to encounter sedimentary rocks that we think fit the ground testing experience better, ”Gandora said.

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