Rover Perseverance has an unexpected satellite
Miscellaneous / / June 09, 2022
Together they have been traveling for more than 100 days.
NASA toldthat in February, the Perseverance rover, on a mission to Mars, caught a rock that now follows it everywhere in the front wheel. This is not surprising, given the number of stones on the surface of the planet: other research rovers also caught them on their way.
Fortunately, it does not pose a danger to the device, although the trip was not easy: the rover slowly but surely moves up to the delta of the river that once flowed at the site of the current crater.
The pebble has been riding in the rover's wheel for more than 100 sols (this term refers to a Martian solar day, it is longer than the earth's by about 36 minutes). During this time, he covered a distance of approximately 8.5 km.
While the statement may sound like a fun fact, it's an important detail for Mars explorers. Although 8.5 kilometers is a short distance for a person, it is huge for a pebble. And if the rover picked it up at the bottom of the Lake Lake crater, now it has arrived at the ancient river delta in the same crater - where the stones are probably different due to long-term contact with water.
This means that thanks to Perseverance, stones with different compositions can be nearby. In order not to confuse geologists, it is important to track where this stone ends up and prevent theories that the stone ended up in another region with someone else's help.
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