Images of bleak dusty landscapes, red-hued sandstorms and Martian rock samples are typically provided by the Perseverance rover. The operators were surprised to see an image of a shiny silver object that looked like a discarded packet.
The object is a piece of debris that was thrown away by the robot during its touchdown.
A piece of a thermal blanket that may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack, may have been spotted by my team.
A thermal blanket is a shiny piece of foil. I was surprised to find that my descent stage crashed about 2 km away. Was this piece blown here by the wind after that?
Concerns have been raised that space exploration poses a risk to the pristine environments of Mars and the moon. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, created an obligation under international law to avoid harmful contamination of outer space, but some argue that the law is not detailed enough to ensure protection
In the case of the Perseverance litter, the good news is that the space radiation environment helps during the nine-month trip to Mars.
It is difficult to land on Mars because of the thin atmosphere, and landers always have associated landing system hardware which also lands on the surface. The risk ofcontamination is very low when these fly off into the sunset.
Perseverance is a mission that is looking for signs of ancient life in the Jezero crater. The area is believed to have been flooded with water more than 3.5 billion years ago. The car-sized rover is collecting soil samples to return to Earth where scientists can assess for signs of ancient life.
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