This NASA image appears to show a lightsaber or sonic screwdriver left behind on Mars. It’s actually a sample tube, dropped by the Perseverance rover.
Was a lightsaber found on Mars? The answer is obviously no, but a photo published by NASA on December 21, 2022 shows an object that seems to be straight out of the Star Wars universe. It didn’t take more to let the internet ignite with humor — even Doctor Who fans saw it as the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.
Nasa photography is completely authentic, without special effects. The object, however, is not a lightsaber or a sonic screwdriver: it is a tube dropped by the Perseverance rover. This represents a major step in Martian exploration.
This tube contains a sample from Mars, which will be recovered
This tube is made of titanium, an ultra-resistant material, and contains a sample of Martian rock. Until next February, the Perseverance rover will deposit ten tubes of this type in this delimited zone (responding to the name of Three Forks). It is ” humanity’s first sample repository on another planet “recalls NASA.
The Perseverance rover is actually tasked with recovering rock and atmospheric samples from the Red Planet. Then, in a few years, he will have to deliver them to a future lander – which will retrieve them from Perseverance using a robotic arm. Then the lander will place the samples in a rocket that will take off again towards Earth.
But if this perilous “robot-to-robot” recovery does not go as planned, the tubes scattered in this small area will be the second solution: small helicopters (similar to Ingenuity) will come to recover the titanium tubes.
