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The Perseverance rover attempted to take a sample from this hole, but the sample is not where it is supposed to be.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
that of NASA Perseverance mission was one of the triumphs, but now the rover faces a mystery worthy of an interplanetary Sherlock Holmes. A rock sample is missing.
The rover successfully completed its first rock drilling on Mars with the intention of take a small sample and store it in a tube. The tubes are intended to be recovered and brought back to Earth by a future mission. NASA on Friday said the data indicated that “no rocks were collected during the initial sampling activity.”
The sampling appeared to go as planned, but the stand-alone process includes a probe check of the tube to measure how much rock it contains. “The probe did not meet the expected resistance that would be there if a sample were inside the tube,” said Jessica Samuels, head of the Perseverance surface mission.
the Twitter account of the noted rover this sampling conundrum is “something we’ve never seen in tests on Earth.”
The rover team suspects that Perseverance did everything right, but the boulder itself did not behave as expected. NASA continues to analyze data and images in an attempt to solve the mystery.
Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater in February, and its first sample was to be greeted with a celebration rather than a head scratching. The crater once housed a lake, making it a prime location for the rover to look for signs of ancient microbial life.
The sample attempt may not have worked, but the Wheeled Explorer is equipped with 43 tubes, so the team will try again. Mars is full of surprises and the rover must have encountered a few hiccups while crossing the red planet.
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