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NASA has confirmed that its rover, Perseverance, succeeded in extracting the first rock sample from Mars.
On Monday, the agency posted a photo of the sample to Twitter, with the comment: “We got it.”
It’s official: I have now captured, sealed and stored the first core ever to be drilled on another planet, with the aim of bringing samples back to Earth. This is the first of a one-of-a-kind Martian rock collection. #SamplingMarch
Read more: https://t.co/bs4Hd4Fzyw pic.twitter.com/2jwF7cOcMZ
– NASA Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) September 6, 2021
Last week, NASA hinted that its robot had extracted this sample, but the images taken were not clear enough, due to poor lighting, and did not allow it to conclusively confirm the case. .
Perseverance took new photos that broke the certainty.
“With better illumination of the bottom of the collection tube, you can see that the rock sample I extracted is still there,” the agency tweeted.
The next task is to reseal the tube and store it.
The sample was taken from a rock the size of a briefcase bearing the name “Rochet”.
#SamplingMarch is in progress. I drilled into my rocky target, and my team will be looking at more data and images to confirm if we were able to get and keep an intact core.
Latest images: https://t.co/Ex1QDo3eC2 pic.twitter.com/OqezgznnPi
– NASA Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) September 2, 2021
Last August, the Perseverance mobile robot failed in its attempt to take a piece of rock from Mars, the first of around 30 samples to be sent back to Earth within a few years for analysis.
The movement aims to search for signs of ancient life, such as traces of fossilized microbial life in rocks, and also to better understand the geology of Mars.
The mission was launched from Florida a year and a half ago.
Perseverance, the size of a large SUV, landed on February 18 in Jezero Crater, which scientists say was home to a deep lake 3.5 billion years ago. This environment may have created the conditions necessary for life outside the planet.
NASA is planning a mission to bring the samples back to Earth in the 2030s, for analysis using more complex instruments than can be brought to Mars today.
(France Brosse)
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