Surprising end to Mars drama



Episode 115
Collecting rock samples for return to Earth is a primary objective for the Perseverance rover. So there was cause for concern when the last two attempts failed. Here’s what happened on the third attempt.

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39 thoughts on “Surprising end to Mars drama”

  1. Third time's a charm. Always has been. It's really amazing what NASA has been doing, but I'm still stomped at how this will be retrieved.
    They plan to send another rover that picks all of these up and in the mean time they will just be laying on the ground, or at least a portion of them.
    One dust devil and it's buried or moved into a different location. The latter being more dangerous as there's no way to find them then unless you drive in outward circles while brushing all the sand away….

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  2. How many unused sample tubes remain in the Perseverance sampling mission? Will Perseverance and Ingenuity continue exploring uncharted territory following the end of the sampling mission, or will both return to their initial landing area to act as a landing port for the future UPS delivery truck mission to pick up the samples?

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  3. Has it even been explained how these rocks are going to be returned to Earth? Because it is a human going to collect them, then might as well just dig and rest on Mars and save a few hundred million dollars.

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  4. Interesting article in NASA Mars 2020 blog written by Denise Buckner, Student at the University of Florida: "Persevering Across the Upper Fan in Search of Record-Keeping Rocks".

    About conglomerates as sedimentary rocks, plus many other interesting things, Buckner says:

    "Certain types of iron-bearing minerals display magnetic properties, and when a magnetic field is applied to these minerals, the direction of magnetization can shift, serving as a record of the event. The conglomerate test is used to determine whether a rock experienced a “remagnetization” event after it formed."

    The above has reminded me that not only many birds, and marine animals are oriented by the earth's magnetic field. Man, from time immemorial, has also developed magnetic orientation instruments.

    Many vessels are built with ferromagnetic materials. The terrestrial magnetic field is capable of inducing magnetism or polarizing, from a needle or small ferromagnetic strips, to a steel vessel docked in the same pier for a long time, what's more, the latter will need a magnetic compass adjuster, since we know that the acquired magnetism will cause a deviation in the on-board compass.

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