The Mars rover “Perseverance” failed in its first attempt to collect rock samples from the Red Planet. The US space agency Nasa released images of a small landfill with a hole in the middle on Friday – it is the first hole ever drilled by a robot on Mars. However, data provided by the rover indicates that no rock was collected from the drilling.
Nasa representative Thomas Zurbuchen announced that this was not the result hoped for. But the team in charge will now work on a “solution” for collecting the samples.
Collecting rocks is expected to take eleven days. The aim is to look for signs of ancient microbial life that may have been preserved in ancient lake debris. The scientists also hope to gain a better understanding of the geological conditions on Mars.
Presumed suitable conditions for organic life
Perseverance left the US state of Florida a little over a year ago and landed in the Jezero crater on Mars in February. Scientists suspect that there was a deep lake there around 3.5 billion years ago, which emptied and refilled several times over time and provided suitable conditions for organic life.
However, it will be years before scientists can analyze the samples themselves: NASA is not planning a joint mission with the European Space Agency (ESA) to bring the samples back to Earth until the 2030s. (AFP / noo)