Why These 10 Samples Collected By NASA’s Perseverance Rover On Mars Are So Important – SlashGear

All of this is in aid of bringing these samples of Mars rock and dust back to Earth — but first, these samples have to be drilled and collected. That’s part of the job of the Perseverance rover, which is currently collecting samples as it explores an area of Mars called the Jezero crater. Once the team working on the rover has selected an interesting target they want to sample, they use the rover’s drill to bore into the rock and bring up rock matter. Then the rover collects this sample and seals it in a special air-tight tube to protect it, as detailed by NASA. These samples can then be left on the Martian surface, ready to be collected and eventually brought back to Earth.

The samples can’t just be left lying around anywhere though. The NASA team needs to know exactly where each sample is in order to be able to retrieve it in the future, and the samples also need to be left in a flat, accessible area so that future helicopters will be able to access them safely. So Perseverance has been working to put together a “sample depot” where 10 of the samples it has collected so far can be stored. Each sample is near enough to the others to be easily accessible, but not so close that the locations could get mixed up. As of December 2022, the rover has carefully placed the 10 tubes in particular locations ready for their eventual collection. With the depot now ready, we’re one step closer to having samples from another planet brought back to Earth for study.