Pic shows ‘shiny foil’ piece found on Mars, NASA calls it ‘unexpected’

An unusual image of a sparkling piece of foil stuck on a rock on the red planet has been acquired by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. The foil fragment is a piece of a thermal blanket that may have originated from the rocket’s descent stage when it sent the Ingenuity Mars chopper and rover onto the planet.

However, the descending stage crashed around two kilometres distant. Therefore, it is unclear to scientists whether the item fell there during the fall or if Martian winds carried it there. ‘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’, tweeted the Perseverance rover team on June 15.

A sheet of foil with dots across it is clearly visible in the image taken by the rover’s left Mastcam-Z camera on June 13.

NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) official named Andrew Good told CNET that the piece is unquestionably from a thermal blanket. He further added that it is not certain exactly the area of the spaceship it originated from. These blankets help regulate temperature during the crucial entry, descent and landing process, which is also known as the ‘seven minutes of terror’.

Here’s part of the team at JPL that wrapped me up in thermal blankets. Think of them as spacecraft dressmakers. They work with sewing machines and other tools to piece together these unique materials.

More on that here: https://t.co/CNkUheYFnQ pic.twitter.com/PcMeow3FyO

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

The social media team for the rover tweeted as well about the individuals that make these blankets, ‘Think of them as spacecraft dressmakers. They work with sewing machines and other tools to piece together these unique materials’.

In an effort to discover proof of early microbial life on Mars, the rover is now scanning an old river delta region inside the Jezero Crater on the planet. This makes the area where water has previously been present, an ideal place to study and gather rock samples. These samples will be brought back to Earth by NASA so they may be more thoroughly examined. A 16-person Mars Sample Return Campaign Science group, formed by the American space agency in collaboration with the European Space Agency, will create the project’s roadmap.