NASA's Perseverance finds tangled objects on Mars

NASA's Perseverance rover has captured a mysterious string of material on the surface of Mars. As it turns out, the rover itself was likely the garbage that it dumped there. When it first landed on Mars in February 2014, the entry, the hardware known as the Descent and Landing (EDL), was dumped on the planet's surface.

Now NASA is seeing that debris from images of Hogwallow Her Flats region on Mars. Scientists suspect that the tangled object, and most of the other objects in the photograph, are likely fragments of the Perseverance's shredded Dacron web.

We've seen it," writes NASA Imaging scientist Justin Maki. "It should be noted that discarded debris is common on space missions."

Dacron is a polyester fiber and is known for its durability, consistency and quality, explains the blog.

"Certain parts of this net appear to have undergone considerable unraveling/shredding, suggesting that it has been subjected to strong forces," wrote Maki. members are reviewing images of the debris to see if the material could be a potential source of contamination of sample tubes from this area."

This blog states: Engineers also considered the possibility that EDL debris could pose a rover entanglement risk, but concluded that such risk was low.

"As Perseverance continues to collect samples for its eventual return to Earth, Perseverance's imaging team will continue to investigate terrain imagery for possible sources of EDL debris. will,” he writes Maki.

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• News from Space
• Mars
• NASA