Weird String-Like Object Found on Mars, Probably Dropped by the Rover

The best evidence I have seen for water on Mars is a tangled mess of string found by NASA's Perseverance rover. There needs to be water where there's fishing.

This tiny piece of trash is probably something left over from Perseverance's parachute, descent stage or even the backshell, which all worked in tandem to bring the rover safely to the surface of Mars in February of 2021.

You can see how small the string is in the image below. The arm is touching a rock that the drill probably just took a sample from. For studying the past habitability of Mars and for choosing the most scientifically valuable sample to cache for future return to Earth, the turret carries scientific cameras, mineral and chemical analyzers and other equipment.

The string may have been blown close to the rover. The string has moved on and is missing from the scene.

The Ingenuity helicopter took pictures of the smashed backshell after Perseverance found several objects left over from the landing.

Are you worried about the trash left by the rover? Stuart said don't be. In a hundred years or so, martians will collect all this stuff and either put it on display in museums or make it into historical jewellery, like we do with fossils, amber and meteorites.

Perseverance is currently looking for a good landing site for a sample return mission and there is more information in a recent article on UT.