A Borehole on Mars at 190 Sol: What the Rover Recently Achieved on the Red Planet

Fortunate:

Status: 04.09.21 12:13 am

NASA’s rover Perseverance drilled this hole in a rock on Mars. Incidentally, this is the rover’s second attempt to drill. The removed core is to be returned to Earth on a subsequent mission. Here we explain how this should be done and why the Mars calendar is now at “190 sols”:

We write one hundred and ninety six days. Or in short: “190 sols”. Die-hard SciFi fans and space experts alike know that this is how the date on the Martian calendar is named. For simplicity, the calendar starts on “Day 1” with each mission landing.

Later, potential long-term Mars astronauts and permanent settlers on Mars will have to rethink how they calculate their Martian days. Because the day of Mars and the year of Mars are not equal to one Earth day and one Earth year. In the case of permanent migration, one cannot easily transfer the calendar and the time customary on our Earth to Mars.

But NASA scientists and mission experts don’t have to worry about that right now. Instead, the latest Mars mission with the NASA Perseverance rover is about finding traces of the earliest microbiological life on Mars and taking many samples from the Martian surface and rocks.

There was no hole in the rock yet!

The rover has special equipment for this purpose. This is the first Mars mission to collect and store samples. In addition to the Martian rock, regoliths (pieces of rock and dust) should also be collected. As part of a later mission, rock and dust samples will be brought back to Earth. Incidentally, the US space agency NASA wants to work with the European Space Agency (ESA) to carry out the return transport mission! Tea

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Incidentally, the rover was built and operated by JPL – Caltech in Pasadena, California which manages it for NASA.

Mars drill with drill core

The borehole photo shown is made up of two images. The Persistence rover drilled the hole during its second sample collection attempt. The picture was taken on September 1, 2021 (Earth calendar). The mailbox-sized rock was named “Rochet” by the team of experts. And the drilling site has since been called “Montdenier”, the rock was discovered in the Jezero crater, and was there on a 900 m long ridge.

Did the Mars rover seal the drill sample well with the hole this time? The responsible NASA team is absolutely convinced about this, but wants to wait and analyze more pictures.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Them: NASA.gov