NASAs Perseverance rover continues collecting Martian rocks.The car-sized robot just snagged its fourth Red Planet rock sample, drilling another core from an appealing stone that it first tested a little over a week ago.” A rock so good, I sampled it two times! Simply topped and sealed my 5th sample tube, with another piece from this fascinating rock. Im doubling up on samples at some high-priority targets like this one,” Perseverance rover staff member composed Wednesday (Nov. 24) via the objectives main Twitter account, publishing 2 photos of the tasting operation as well.Related: Where to discover the current Mars images from NASAs Perseverance roverPerseverance gathered two samples from the same Martian rock in November 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Perseverance landed in February on the flooring of Mars Jezero Crater, which hosted a huge lake and a river delta billions of years earlier. The rover is searching for indications of ancient Mars life and gathering lots of samples, which a joint NASA-European Space Agency project will carry to Earth, maybe as early as 2031. Perseverance has actually sealed 5 sample tubes to date, as the above tweet notes. One of those tubes is empty: The very first rock the robotic attempted to sample, back in August, proved to be incredibly soft, crumbling to bits that didnt make it into the designated titanium tube.The recently gathered sample comes from the same rock that Perseverance drilled on Nov. 15. That stone is abundant in the greenish mineral olivine, a magnesium iron silicate that makes up the majority of Earths upper mantle. ” There are numerous concepts amongst my science group about how it arrived. Hypotheses are flying! Science rules,” the Perseverance group tweeted on Nov. 16, when it announced the effective collection of sample number three. Perseverance might be millions of miles from its home world, but its not alone. The rover landed with a small robotic partner, a 4-pound (1.8 kgs) helicopter called Ingenuity, which has actually demonstrated that aerial expedition is possible on Mars.Ingenuity is now carrying out scouting work for Perseverance. The little chopper has actually acquired 16 Red Planet flights to date, the most current of which happened on Sunday (Nov. 21). Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; shown by Karl Tate), a book about the look for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook..
NASAs Perseverance rover continues collecting Martian rocks.The car-sized robot simply snagged its fourth Red Planet rock sample, drilling another core from an intriguing stone that it first tested a little over a week ago. Im doubling up on samples at some high-priority targets like this one,” Perseverance rover group members wrote Wednesday (Nov. 24) through the objectives official Twitter account, posting two pictures of the tasting operation as well.Related: Where to find the most current Mars photos from NASAs Perseverance roverPerseverance collected two samples from the very same Martian rock in November 2021. One of those tubes is empty: The very first rock the robot tried to sample, back in August, showed to be exceptionally soft, crumbling to bits that didnt make it into the designated titanium tube.The freshly collected sample comes from the very same rock that Perseverance drilled on Nov. 15.