Notes

NASA Discovers the Strange Object its Rover found on Mars

Debris will undoubtedly accumulate at the site of landing after a spacecraft falls to distant worlds.



NASA has documented the a variety of debris scattered by the 2021 landing of its high-tech Perseverance rover, which includes a strange-looking ball of tangled "spaghetti"-like material that the space agency believes they've discovered.



"It must be noted that debris that is discarded is common in space missions," NASA scientist Justin Maki wrote in a Mars blog.



NASA believes that the tangled debris, which has caused intrigue on the internet, is actually a piece (called "Dacron netting") of netting that is used in thermal blankets to shield spacecraft from extreme temperatures and conditions like when it crashes through the Martian atmosphere at around 12,000 mph. The rover also found other fragments of thermal material.



This particular ball of netting appears unusual and tangled. It is likely because it was "subjected to the forces of nature", NASA's Maki said. Perhaps when a key element of the rover's landing gear collided with another, leaving a plume oozing out of the Martian desert.



The car-sized rover may continue to find wind-strewn detritus while it searches the Martian surface for potential hints of the past, primitive existence on Mars.



Amazing Mars image shows Martian water flowing earlier than we thought. Strange, surprising events are taking place on Neptune. The James Webb telescope's first spectacular cosmic images are now available.



Importantly, NASA is watching to ensure that any samples the rover takes aren't contaminated by any Earth debris. Teamextrememc "Perseverance team members are reviewing images of the debris, checking to see if the material may pose as a potential contamination source for the sample tubes from this region," Maki said.


Website: https://teamextrememc.org/