Scientists finally know what happened to the mysterious rock monster that is disappearing in Perseverance

NASA thinks it knows why persistence first appeared Mars stone monster to disappear.

as a salon mentioned beforeEarlier this month, scientists attempted to collect samples from the Red Planet and deposit them in one of the 43 collection tubes of the Perseverance spacecraft. At first everything seemed to be going smoothly: the rover dug a tiny finger-sized hole in the rock, and the pictures showed a clear hole in that rock. But follow-up analysis showed no rock samples in the tube.

What happened?

After several days of analyzing data and images from the probe, NASA’s Perseverance Team determined that the rocks had likely shattered into “small fragments.”

Louise Gandora, chief engineer of the sampling system, wrote in: NASA Blog Post Wednesday. “It is likely that the base material required will be either in the bottom of the hole, in the cutting shaft, or a combination of both.”

Ghostly cue music.

“Both 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 from it,” Jandoura explains. “So we are moving to the next sampling site south of Sitah, the farthest point at this point in our science expedition.”

Perseverance first selected a rock in Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide crater and former lake that scientists believe is an ideal place to search for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars. Al-Jandora said it turned out that the rock “did not cooperate this time.”

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“It reminds me again of the nature of exploration,” Jandoura said. “The end result is not guaranteed, no matter how prepared you are. Despite this result, science and technology have made progress.”

Perseverance is a typical mission, which means Perseverance will collect and store samples of Martian rock and soil, which will eventually be returned to Earth. Obtaining the sample is clearly key to this mission, which is why NASA scientists tested a “raging cylinder,” according to Gandora, when the sample was not present.

return example: missions Intense Special In fact, due to its cost, there was no mission to bring back a monster from another planet. While the mission to return samples from Mars is not fully planned yet, NASA scientists say that if all goes well, we could return samples from Mars to Earth by 2031.

Let’s hope they can get a sample in South Sittah next time, in September.

“Based on the rover and helicopter So far, we’ll likely encounter sedimentary rocks that we expect will fit better in the ground test experience, Gandora said.


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