NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured a shiny object on the surface of the Red Planet that is likely to be a piece of foil thermal blanket from a 2021 mission.
On Tuesday, while the Perseverance rover has been searching for signs of ancient microbial life in Jezero Crater, an ancient river delta the team spotted a shiny object.
The team shared on Twitter what seemed to be a piece of the thermal blanket used to control temperatures and protect the rover during the shocking entrance, descent, and landing phase, which is known as “seven minutes of horror.”
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My team has spotted something unexpected: It’s a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that set me down on landing day back in 2021. pic.twitter.com/O4rIaEABLu
— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) June 15, 2022
That shiny bit of foil is part of a thermal blanket – a material used to control temperatures. It’s a surprise finding this here: My descent stage crashed about 2 km away. Did this piece land here after that, or was it blown here by the wind? pic.twitter.com/uVx3VdYfi8
— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) June 15, 2022
Perseverance’s mission is also to gather dust and rock samples: Test a helicopter and investigate the environment and geology of Mars.
In Feb 2021, Perseverance team tweeted after landing: “A moment of respect for the descent stage. Within two minutes of safely delivering me to the surface of Mars, I caught the smoke plume on one of my Hazcams from its intentional surface impact — an act that protected me and the scientific integrity of my landing site.”
Later on, the team found another piece left by the rover on Mars. The landing gear that allowed the Ingenuity and Perseverance rovers to reach Mars was photographed by the Ingenuity helicopter in April.
Ian Clark, a former Perseverance systems engineer who now leads the effort to transport Martian samples back to Earth at JPL in Southern California, said in a statement, “Perseverance had the best-documented Mars landing in history, with cameras showing everything from parachute inflation to touchdown.”
