NASA plane takes pictures of debris from "another world" on Mars
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| NASA plane on Mars |
The publication of a group of images showing debris on the surface of Mars has sparked a lot of controversy among scientists and ordinary people, as some believed that it belonged to extraterrestrials and not to the surface of the Earth, but this claim was completely refuted shortly. Images taken by the flying robot accompanying the Perseverance spacecraft turned out to be the remnants of the landing parachute that enabled the spacecraft to safely land on Mars more than a year ago.
In February 2021, Perseverance was able to successfully land in a wide crater of Mars craters and took various pictures and samples to pass at the end of April near its landing site and reach the river delta. The Ingenuity helicopter accompanying the spacecraft took a set of images within 159 seconds and at an altitude of 1181 feet, showing the rear shell or the top of the landing capsule that was protecting the Perseverance spacecraft while entering the Martian atmosphere. a year since its fall.
NASA reports that the canopy and back cover separated from the craft at an altitude of 1.3 miles so Perseverance continues to operate the Skycrane rocket power system to safely reach the surface of Mars, while its rear crust rests more than a mile to the northwest. The back of the capsule was 15 feet in diameter and slammed into the Martian atmosphere at 78 mph, partially shattering but not charring to look exactly in good condition.
NASA engineers had another opinion after seeing the wreck. Engineer Ian Clark, who specializes in the Perseverance parachute system, says that a picture says 1,000 words, and studying the wreckage will open the way for future NASA trips to the surface of Mars. Clark adds that the images help verify the success of surface sample analysis on future NASA missions.
While the mission's project scientist Kenneth Farley was genuinely fascinated by not just the images of the debris but what really happened to the instrument on the surface of Mars, showing that the debris ended up between two rock formations on the floor of a Martian crater,
One of these formations is called Seitah which is very rich in olivine, while the other is Maaz which is more like flowing basalt lava and rich in minerals without aquamarine. Farley says it's exciting to see how these rocks can relate to each other and to understand how they were formed to better accommodate the Martian environment. Astrobiology is one of the main missions of Perseverance to obtain samples of Martian soil and minerals and send them back to Earth for study while trying to discover signs of ancient microbial life.
The spacecraft also succeeded, during its tours on the surface of the Red Planet, in taking rare pictures of the small Martian moon Phobos as it passed in front of the Sun in a partial eclipse, which showed the detailed measurement of the Martian moon, which scientists confirm will open the way for a better study of the internal structure of the Red Planet.