NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars was tasked with looking for signs of past microbial Martian life on the red planet but instead discovered trash that appeared to be caught in a jagged rock.

The truth behind the discovery was that it was landing debris, more specifically, thermal material that the space agency used to protect the Perseverance spacecraft from extreme temperatures as it traveled to Mars and plummeted through the planet's atmosphere.

My team has spotted something unexpected: It’s a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that set me down on landing day back in 2021. pic.twitter.com/O4rIaEABLu

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) June 15, 2022

Trash on Mars

In a Twitter post using the Perseverance rover account, the space agency posted on Wednesday that the team had spotted something unexpected. "It's a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that set me down on landing day back in 2021."

Now, a question that experts need to answer is how the foil-like debris found its way to this region in Mars' Jezero Crater, roughly two kilometers from where landing gear (the "rocket-powered" jet pack) crashed in the Martian desert, as per Mashable.

NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February last year, and the spacecraft holding the rover ditched a variety of instruments and objects on its way down to the planet's surface. These included a heat shield, a supersonic parachute, and a rocket-powered sky crane that lowered the rover to the ground.

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The robot, which is roughly the size of a car, has already rumbled by its jettisoned parachute, so it was not totally unexpected for it to now find more landing debris. However, the rover does not have much time to observe trash as it is now entering the prime of its mission as it is set to explore a dried-up river delta in the Jezero Crater.

According to King5, the Perseverance rover is accompanied by two other functioning spacecraft on the Martian surface, the Curiosity rover and the InSight lander. While Perseverance and Curiosity, which are powered by nuclear resources, are still functioning, the solar-powered InSight made headlines earlier this year because of its imminent dusty demise.

NASA's Perseverance Rover

The discovery of the trash comes after the Perseverance rover also spotted a weird snake-head rock and balancing boulder on the surface of the red planet. On Sunday, June 12, NASA's rover took a photo that showed a boulder perched atop a slab of gray rock. To the right-center, a formation could be seen that resembles an open-mouthed snake that juts from a layered reddish butte.

The team behind the rover is much more excited about the discovery because it seems that the terrain is part of the ancient river delta that once existed inside the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater. NASA's Perseverance rover also has a secondary mission, which is to collect and cache dozens of samples for future return to Earth.

On the other hand, Ingenuity has been helping the Perseverance rover explore the crater's floor by scouting out routes and trying to find interesting science targets for the rover. The small helicopter has been doing reconnaissance work since acing its primary mission, which was an initial 30-day, a five-flight campaign designed to show that powered flight was possible on Mars despite the planet's thin atmosphere, Space reported.

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