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Chef’s Kiss
NASA’s beloved Mars rover has discovered something particularly strange while traversing the Red Planet – a mess of unidentified string material that almost resembles a swirl of pasta.
Sadly, while we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that extraterrestrial life also enjoys linguine, ramen, or any pasta-centric meal, it’s very likely that this oddity is actually just space junk from NASA, a relic of Percy’s arrival in 2021. .
NASA trash
This isn’t the first time Percy has encountered NASA debris on a primitive planet.
Just last month, a program that rover discovered what is believed to be a piece of thermal blanket — previously connected to a rocket-powered jet beam that helped the probe land on the dusty surface of our cosmic neighbor last year — lay in rock two kilometers from the landing site.
Percy, with his pet stone hopefully still in the clouds, is busy collecting a variety of valuable specimens from the Jezero Crater, a fascinating region of the Red Planet that contains what is believed to be an ancient river delta. Scientists hope that rocky material extracted from the crater will provide clues to whether Mars did indeed have sustainable microbial life.
NASA maintains that the samples should return to Earth by 2033, but this return trip – which itself caused its fair share of drama – is still a long way from a logistical standpoint. In the meantime, Percy will keep calling home with pictures, and we’ll keep our eyes peeled for more space spaghetti.
Learn more about Mars exploration: NASA’s rover discovers possible new evidence of ancient life on Mars
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