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The object looks like a flying saucer that crashed on Mars.
And it really is.
But it doesn’t belong to aliens.
Instead, the wreckage is NASA’s job; this is a component called a rear shell that was detached during combat. Landing of the Perseverance rover On the surface of the red planet in February 2021.
“There’s definitely an element of sci-fi,” said Ian Clark, an engineer working on Perseverance’s parachute system, of the photos released Wednesday. “It’s radiating from the other world, isn’t it?”
On its 26th flight last week, Ingenuity took 10 photos in 159 seconds, covering 1,181 feet in the air. These show the posterior shell or the upper half of the landing capsule. Perseverance and Creativity preserved as they set through the Martian atmosphere. The 70-metre parachute is still attached, which slows down the descent of the vehicles.
The parachute and rear shell separated from the rover at an altitude of 1.3 miles. A rocket-powered system called Skycrane took Perseverance the rest of its way to the surface, while the rear shell and parachute descended more than a mile to the northwest.
The rear shell, about 15 feet in diameter, slammed into the ground at about 78 miles per hour and partially disintegrated. Otherwise, everything appears to be in good condition – no obvious signs of charring. The parachute looks solid, as do the suspension lines that connect the parachute to the rear shell. But engineers began to study the new images in detail.
“They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, but it’s also worth an endless amount of engineering insights,” Mr. Clark said.
Examining the remnants of the back crust could be useful for NASA’s next big Martian adventure – bringing back rocks and soil from Mars to Earth for further study. that task called Mars Sample Returnyou will need to put two landing craft on the surface – a rover to collect Rock samples drilled by Perseveranceand a small rocket to launch the samples into orbit for another spacecraft to pick up and bring back to Earth.
“We use all of our best models, all of our best analysis tools,” said Mr. Clark. Images add confidence to models in the future by helping to validate how well models and analysis are working.
Kenneth Farley, the mission’s project scientist, was fascinated not only by the “really gorgeous” images of the hardware, but also by what the hardware was all about.
Dr. “Remarkably, this debris arose at the contact between two rock formations at the crater floor,” Farley said in an email. The two formations, Seitah and Maaz, are both made up of volcanic rocks. But they are very different in composition. Seitah is rich in olivine, formed from thick magma, perhaps a lava lake. The top, and thus possibly younger, Maaz has a similar composition to most basaltic lava flows – it is filled with minerals known as pyroxene and plagioclase, but contains little or no olivine.
The two formations meet at a rock line that runs from the rear crust to an area right next to the parachute. Dr. “We want to know how these rocks might be related to each other,” Farley said.
The mission’s scientists were so fascinated by the geology that Ingenuity once again crossed the dividing line between Seitah and Maaz on Sunday. These pictures will be sent back to Earth on Thursday.
Perseverance was also busy during his rides. On April 2, he took a series of photos. little Martian moon Phobos a partial eclipse by a potato-like object as it passes in front of the sun. Detailed measurements of Phobos’ orbit provide clues about Mars’ internal structure.
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