It might look like a lightsaber from Star Wars, but it’s actually an important sample collected by Nasa’s rover 🤖
The sample tube will form a ‘depot of tubes’ that could be considered for a journey to Earth by the Mars Sample Return campaign.
Perseverance has been taking duplicate samples from rock targets the mission selects. The rover currently has the other 17 samples taken so far in its belly. The lander would, in turn, use a robotic arm to place the samples in a containment capsule aboard a small rocket that would blast off to Mars orbit, where another spacecraft would capture the sample container and return it safely to Earth.
In coming weeks, scientists have other opportunities to check Perseverance’s progress in making more sample deposits at the Three Forks cache.Rick Welch, Perseverance’s deputy project manager at JPL, explains: ‘Seeing our first sample on the ground is a great capstone to our prime mission period, which ends on the 6th January.
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