This artificial object in the soil of Mars is the last of 10 sample tubes deposited at a site as a repository by NASA’s Perseverance robot, as part of a campaign by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). to bring samples from Mars to Earth for further study in the best-equipped laboratories on Earth.
The robotic rover dropped, one by one and at different points on the land chosen as the deposit, titanium tubes each housing a stone core (sample of the interior of a rock) the size of a piece of chalk, with the exception of the tube number 10, the one shown in the photo, which acts as a “witness”.
The core tube is similar to sample tubes containing Martian stony material, except that it has been prefilled with a wide range of materials that can capture particulate and molecular contaminants. Tubes of this type are opened on the Martian surface and their function, when the samples return to Earth in the future, will be to help determine if the collected samples may be contaminated with materials that have traveled with Perseverance from Earth.
The tube in the photo and the other nine were released from the robot’s belly about three feet above the ground, in an area of Jezero crater nicknamed “Three Forks.”
(Photo: NASA JPL / Caltech / MSSS)
The robotic rover, which reached the surface of Mars in 2021, has been taking a couple of samples from each of its stone study targets. One sample from each pair has been deposited at Three Forks to form the sample repository, which is the reserve. The main deposit is Perseverance itself, inside which the other samples remain. (Font: NCYT de Amazings)