NASA's Perseverance rover has captured an uncommon picture of one thing mendacity within the pink sand of Mars: a bundle of string.
The rover's entrance left hazard avoidance digital camera took a photograph of the light-coloured object on July 12 that some individuals likened to spaghetti.
Officers on the area company confirmed that they consider the item to be a string left over from Perseverance's touchdown.
The string may very well be from the rover or its descent stage, a element much like a rocket-powered jet pack used to securely decrease the rover to the planet's floor, in line with a spokesperson for the Perseverance mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Perseverance had not beforehand been within the space the place the string was discovered, so it is seemingly the wind blew it there, the spokesperson mentioned.
Presently exploring an historical delta known as Jezero Crater, the rover is searching for indicators of microscopic life which will have known as Mars residence billions of years in the past, the spokesperson mentioned.
This crater is the place Perseverance initially landed on February 18, 2021.
Beautiful new pictures of Mars from Perseverance rover
This isn't the primary time the rover has stumbled upon items of fabric left over from its descent on Mars.
Perseverance's cameras snapped a photograph of a fraction of shiny foil in mid-June, in line with a tweet from the rover's official account.
The crew believed it to be part of the rover's thermal blanket, a skinny materials that regulates temperature, which will have fallen off through the descent stage.
The rover's crew at NASA is researching extra concerning the new piece of particles and plans to launch extra particulars later this week.