For the first time since landing on Mars in February 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured a picture of a shining silver item tucked between two boulders in the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater.
The rover’s operators claim that Perseverance brought this debris to Mars from Earth. NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover discovered a new item in space: a fragment of NASA’s rocket-powered jet pack’s thermal blanket.
Andrew Good, the spokesman for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, stated that the item detected on the surface of the Red Planet is in fact a piece of the planet’s thermal blanket. The debris looks like a thin metal foil with plenty of black spots, according to photographs released by the international space union.
On June 15, NASA released the images taken by the Perseverance rover. You can view the real images obtained by the spacecraft in the tweets below.
My team has spotted something unexpected: It’s a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that set me down on landing day back in 2021. pic.twitter.com/O4rIaEABLu
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) June 15, 2022
The recent discovery of fresh space junk has specialists at NASA perplexed. For example, if the blanket was found 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) removed from its original position, the Perseverance team stated. So, they’re not sure whether the thermal blanket truly landed there or if it was blown away by the wind during the atmospheric arrival.
That shiny bit of foil is part of a thermal blanket – a material used to control temperatures. It’s a surprise finding this here: My descent stage crashed about 2 km away. Did this piece land here after that, or was it blown here by the wind?
When it comes to searching for evidence of past life on Mars, persistence is key. Jezero, which was formerly home to a lake and river delta millions of years ago, is an ideal area to do such research, according to members of the expedition team. Photos taken by the rover do not contain bits of its own protective gear, but they are nonetheless rather intriguing. In the Delta area of Jezero, for example, Perseverance captured an image of an open-mouthed snake head and a boulder resting on top of one other.
Tiesha loves to share her passion for everything that’s beautiful in this world. Apart from writing on her beauty blog and running her own beauty channel on Youtube, she also enjoys traveling and photography. Tiesha covers various stories on the website.