On Mars, NASA’s Perseverance Rover Drilled the Rocks It Came For
The New York Times
After an earlier drilling attempt mysteriously failed, the robotic mission collected the first tube of samples that may one day help scientists understand the red planet.
This time, the rock did not disappear. After a perplexing failure last month, NASA’s latest Mars rover, Perseverance, was able to drill a sample of rock on Wednesday. The rover took pictures of the rock in the tube and sent the images to Earth so that mission managers could be sure they had not come up empty again. Then Perseverance will seal the collection tube and put it away in its belly. The success, visible in images posted online on Thursday, is most likely a relief to scientists working on the mission.More Related News