[ad_1]
Adam Steltzner, chief engineer at Perseverance, called the sample perfect.
“I have never been so happy to see a hole in a rock,” he wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
A month ago, Perseverance drilled into softer rock, and the sample collapsed and did not enter the titanium tube.
The probe traveled half a mile to a better location for sampling on another attempt. Team members analyzed the data and images before declaring success.
In February, Perseverance reached Jezero Crater on Mars, believed to be home to a lush lake bed and multibillion-year-old river delta, looking for rocks that may contain evidence of ancient life.
NASA plans to launch more spacecraft to transport the samples collected by Perseverance to Earth.
Engineers hope to return as many as thirty samples to Earth within a decade or so.
[ad_2]
Source link
