NASA’s Perseverance vehicle, which continues its explorations on Mars, recently found another strange object that looks like a tangled string of rope. However, although it may seem exciting at first glance, it seems to have a very simple explanation.
The image comes from one of the front vandalism cameras, which monitor the environment to protect the Perseverance vehicle as it moves or uses its robot arm. Debris from the mission is cited as the most likely explanation for this entangled material. Perseverance saw the remnants of the landing equipment up close and far. The rover even spotted a small piece of thermal blanket stuck in a rock in one of these instances in June.
The rover’s arrival at Mars in February 2021 was a pretty dramatic event. The landing stage safely brought the wheeled lab to the surface and then glided away from the landing point to crash into the ground at a safe distance. Perseverance saw this crash, and you can imagine how the pieces of equipment might have spread over a large area.
Looking further at this strange object, we can see its size relative to one of the rover’s wheels and the tip of the robotic arm. Perseverance continues its research in the Jezero Crater, which is considered the prime spot to look for signs of ancient microbial life.
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