NASA's Perseverance Rover has taken two samples from the Red Planet rock. The mission team calls it "Rochette."
NASA's Perseverance Rover has already taken two samples from Red Planet.
Perseverance retrieved a core from a Martian rock called "Rochette" by drilling it out and sealed it in its titanium tube. Mission team members announced this via Twitter on Wednesday, September 8th.
This success was only four days after the car-sized Rover collected its first Martian sample. It was also cored from Rochette.
Related: Where can I find the most recent Mars photos taken by NASA's Perseverance Rover?
This photo shows the second sample NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover collected from the rock Rochette. It was taken on September 8, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)
Perseverance made it into the Red Planet's Jezero Crater, which measures 28 miles wide (45 km) on February 18. The six-wheeled robot will hunt for signs of ancient Mars life, and collect and cache dozens of samples. This data will be used to create a NASA-European Space Agency joint campaign that will bring the sample back to Earth in a decade.
Early in its mission, the rover also supported and documented the first few flights of NASA's technology-demonstrating Ingenuity helicopter, which traveled to Mars on Perseverance's belly. Ingenuity has now begun an extended mission to explore areas of potential interest for the rover.
NASA officials stated that Perseverance's samples will be sent to scientists around the globe, who will examine them for evidence of life as well as clues about Mars' geological history.
Perseverance attempted to collect a sample Aug. 5, but was stopped by an unexpectedly soft target stone, which fell to pieces beneath the rover’s percussive drill. As the latest drilling attempts have demonstrated, Rochette is made from much stronger material.
NASA will host a press conference on Friday, September 10, at 12 p.m. ET (1600 GMT). This will discuss recent sampling efforts and what NASA's Perseverance team has discovered about Rochette so far. Space.com has the live stream. Or you can directly access NASA via the space agency.
Participants in the briefing will include:
Lori Glaze is the director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington
Jessica Samuels is the Perseverance surface missions manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Matt Robinson, Perseverance strategic sample operations team chief, JPL
Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance deputy project scientist, JPL
Yulia Goreva Perseverance return scientist, JPL
Meenakshi Wadhwa is the principal scientist for Mars sample returns, JPL, and Arizona State University.
