You’ve probably heard of the problem of space junk in the universe. Now, it looks like we’re even polluting other planets.
On Monday, NASA’s Perseverance rover took a rare photo of a shiny silver object embedded between two rocks in the ground of Mars’ Jezero crater and sent it to Earth for everyone to see.
Detecting something unexpected
“My team has detected something unexpected: it’s a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that dropped me on the day of landing in 2021.” , wrote members of the Perseverance team on Twitter. Wednesday.
My team has detected something unexpected: it’s a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jetpack that dropped me on the day of landing in 2021. peak. twitter.com/O4rIaEABLu.
– NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) June 15, 2022
“This shiny piece of foil is part of a thermal blanket, a material used to control temperatures. It’s a surprise to find it here: my descent stage crashed about 2km. [1.2 miles] far. Did this piece land here after that, or was it blown here by the wind? “, They added in another post.
A strange deja vu
NASA did not have an answer on how the piece of rubble got to its current location, but it is not the first time that garbage ends up on the red planet and is documented directly in our homes. In April, Mars Ingenuity’s helicopter, which landed on Mars at the same time as Perseverance, took aerial footage of the remains of the descent shell and parachute.
We peek with our little eyes … the rover’s undercarriage! During flight # 26 of the #MarsHelicopter, he took photos of the entrance, descent, and landing gear that @NASAPersevere needed to land on Mars safely. You can see the protective case and the large dusty parachute. pic.twitter.com/ePlEASIrr0
– NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) April 27, 2022
These spacecraft remains show that human influence is indeed present on the red planet and that we must proceed with caution when exploring other planets. The debris is too small to have any effect on the planet, but as more and more missions venture to Mars, the problem of space debris may be greater.
This brings us to the question: how can NASA engineers and other space enthusiasts conceive of missions that do not pollute their environment at all? Is it a possibility or just a dream?
The Mars Perseverance rover completed its one-year anniversary on the red planet last February. On February 18, 2021, the spacecraft carrying NASA’s $ 2.7 billion robotic explorer named Perseverance gently placed the rover on the alien planet. The event marked NASA’s most enthusiastic and exhausting effort in decades to study whether life ever existed on the red planet.