NASA Mars Rover Has a New Pet Rock Alongside for the Journey

NASA’s Perseverance rover is popping right into a rideshare for Martian rocks. In early 2022, the rover picked up a rock in its left entrance wheel. That rock continues to be in residence, but it surely appears the rover now has a brand new pal, an excellent larger rock that discovered its manner into Percy’s proper entrance wheel.

Astrophotographer Simeon Schmauss observed the brand new rock in late February and tweeted a mosaic picture of each rocks within the entrance wheels as seen by Percy’s left and proper hazard avoidance cameras mounted low on the rover. 

The HazCams assist control the terrain the rover traverses, they usually’re additionally helpful for monitoring the wheels and, because it seems, conserving tabs on rocky hitchhikers. The brand new freeloader appears to have first appeared in a uncooked picture despatched again by the rover on Feb. 27. The digicam received a more in-depth, although very shadowed, view of the rock on March 1.

Percy’s older pet rock has traveled with the rover for a lot of miles and has witnessed the gathering of rock samples and the creation of the first pattern depot on one other world. One in all Perseverance’s important mission objectives is assist us perceive whether or not Mars as soon as hosted microbial life. Delivering the rover’s pattern assortment to Earth for nearer examine by way of the longer term Mars Pattern Return mission is a key a part of this effort.

The brand new wheel rock could stick round, or it could find yourself falling out as Perseverance roves by means of the Jezero Crater. NASA wasn’t frightened in regards to the authentic rock, saying final yr that the chunk was “not perceived as a threat.” NASA did not instantly reply to a request for remark.

Mars is a notoriously rocky place, because the sibling Curiosity rover and its roughed-up wheels can attest. NASA reworked the design for Percy’s aluminum wheels in order that they’ll maintain as much as the trials of driving throughout an inhospitable panorama. 

Maybe the lesson right here is that the true treasure in Mars exploration is the rock pals we make alongside the way in which.