The object has been captured on one of Ingenuity ‘s legs on the surface of Mars .
NASA has again found some unknown object near its devices on the surface of Mars .
The space agency has detected a strange piece hanging from the landing legs of Ingenuity , its Martian helicopter.
“There is something on your foot”
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL ) showed the sequence of images through its Twitter account.
“There’s something on your foot, Mars Helicopter!” he wrote. “We’re looking into some debris that ended up on Ingenuity ‘s foot during his last air ride.”
According to a very brief statement from NASA, the helicopter imaged a “small piece of foreign object debris” during its 33rd flight, which took place over the weekend. The small object was not visible during Ingenuity ‘s previous flight .
Footage shows the straggling, cloth-like object hanging from one of the helicopter’s four legs during takeoff before flying away harmlessly.
There’s something on your foot, #MarsHelicopter! 👀
We’re looking into a bit of debris that ended up on Ingenuity’s foot during its latest aerial commute. As shown in the GIF, it eventually came off and did not impact a successful Flight 33. https://t.co/S78Chpo2uO pic.twitter.com/oFnRUBy4aq— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) October 1, 2022
Space junk?
Mars is filling up with garbage that, more than likely, came from Earth.
Because the vehicles that transport elements and equipment as important as the rovers – explorer robots with cameras and other tools that help study the planet – tend to undock from other modules, many of these end up being abandoned on the Martian surface and have remained there. for decades in the vast majority of cases. For example, Perseverance, the agency’s newest rover, spotted one of these pieces of human trash when it arrived on the planet.
To date, it is estimated that all the accumulated human garbage on Mars amounts to 10 tons, but, considering that some equipment is still in the active phase, it is estimated that the total amount of garbage left on the planet is around 7 tons.