Perseverance just collected its 10th sample – Teach Me Science

Perseverance has successfully extracted and stored its tenth sample on Mars. (Picture: NASA).

Last July 6, Perseverance successfully collected their ninth sample and now the list grows to ten. The plan is really ambitious since it is expected that these samples will one day arrive on Earth to be analyzed in depth. Here might be the answer to the question of whether Mars ever supported life.

“Great day for rocket science! From the stunning telescope views that #UnfoldTheUniverse, to the close-ups of #SamplingMars, with rock cores barely the size of a pinky finger. I’ve now collected my 10th sample of rock, seen here in the Martian afternoon sun,” the rover’s official Twitter account wrote.

Big day for space science! From the views of the large telescope which #ExpandThe Universeto extreme close-ups of #SamplingMars, with rocky cores barely the size of a little finger. I have now collected my 10th rock sample, seen here in the late afternoon Martian sun. pic.twitter.com/uOq5nABY8W

— NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover (@NASAPersevere) July 13, 2022

Perseverance uses a rotary hammer drill and drill bit to drill and core. The instrument sits at the end of its two-meter-long robotic arm. According to NASA, extracted samples are somewhat thicker than a pencil. The rover is carrying 43 sample tubes, and team members said they filled at least 20 by the end of the mission. Each sample will be a cylindrical core 1.3 cm wide by 6 cm long.

It goes fast, last week the rover celebrated its ninth collection of samples.

“Rock sample #9 is in the bag! (Well, in the tube, at least),” the rover’s Twitter account said. “My team has waited years to approach this river delta and see what it might say about past life on Mars. This sample could very well get a one-way ticket to Earth in the future!”

Rock sample #9 is in the bag! (Well, in the tube, anyway.)

My team waited years to approach this river delta and see what it might say about past life on Mars. This sample may well get a one-way trip to Earth in the future! #SamplingMars pic.twitter.com/GCQ51UzUtg

— NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover (@NASAPersevere) July 7, 2022

NASA also recently mentioned as the six-wheeled rover explores whether the area is suitable for NASA’s next Mars lander. This means that the Perseverance rover is not only carrying out its scientific sample collection campaign in the ancient Jezero crater delta, it has also been busy exploring, searching for places where the planned Mars sample return campaign (MSR) could land the ship and collect the sample tubes that Perseverance has filled with rocks and sediment.

The samples were never brought back from Mars, so this represents a historic effort that would recover and deliver samples from this distant terrain for intensive study in laboratories on Earth in search of signs of past microscopic life on the planet. planet. According to the space agencythe strategic partnership between NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) would include several spacecraft, including a rocket that would be launched from the surface of Mars.

“The Perseverance team went above and beyond for us, as Mars Sample Return has unique needs when it comes to where we operate,” said in a press release Richard Cook, MSR program manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Essentially a boring landing spot is good. The flatter and more uninteresting the view the better we like it, because although there is plenty to do when we arrive to collect the samples, tourism n not part of it.