NASA's Mars Perseverance rover just dropped its 1st sample on the Martian surface - Space.com

Santa came aboriginal to Mars this year.

NASA's Perseverance mission dropped its archetypal cache of precious stone samples connected the sands of Mars, leaving down a grounds of worldly that a aboriginal ngo could bring backmost to Earth. It's a cardinal infinitesimal successful the hunt for life connected Mars, NASA officials said successful a connection connected Wednesday (Dec. 21).

The rover's publication to seeking "ancient microbial life" successful an aged stream delta, arsenic NASA's Jet Propulsion said in an update (opens successful caller tab), volition see 10 titanium tubes deposited astatine this location, nicknamed "Three Forks."

Sometime successful the 2030s, if schedules hold, either Perseverance oregon two helicopters (similar to the presently flying Ingenuity Mars chopper that finished its 37th flight days ago) volition ferry rocky tubes similar this successful Jezero Crater to a waiting ship. 

Related: Perseverance Mars rover to commencement caching samples for aboriginal instrumentality to Earth

This conduit is simply a backup depot, however; Perseverance collects duplicate samples astatine each determination and its ngo calls for it to bash the transportation itself, utilizing the acceptable of caches wrong the rover. But if necessary, the helicopters could beryllium called upon to prime up the backup tubes near connected the Martian surface.

However the tubes get delivered, a spacecraft volition motorboat them to abstraction and manus the samples disconnected to a waiting orbiter to instrumentality the Martian samples to Earth. Aside from a fewer meteorites carved disconnected of Mars that fell onto our planet, the historical shipment volition correspond the archetypal clip Red Planet rocks person made it to Earth.

One of the cardinal ingredients of beingness appears abundant connected Mars, oregon astatine slightest it was successful past times: Water. Huge canyons, immense icebergs and imaginable underwater reservoirs suggest Mars was rich with water successful the past past, contempt the planet's dried-up and dusty quality today. 

But whether determination was capable to enactment beingness requires "ground truth," which is wherever Perseverance comes in. A rover tin lone transportation truthful galore instruments with it, however; sending the samples backmost to Earth volition let full laboratories the accidental to reappraisal the Martian bits for signatures of past life.

The archetypal illustration to deed the regolith is astir the size of a portion of chalk, collected from an igneous stone nicknamed "Malay" connected Jan. 31 successful a portion called "South Séítah." South Séítah is itself significant; scientists announced weeks earlier taking the illustration that they had found organics, a imaginable constituent of life, successful the aforesaid area.

The car-sized Perseverance took astir an hr to spit retired the conduit from its belly, wherever the sampling and caching strategy resides. The conduit fell 3 feet (89 centimeters) to a level spot of the Martian aboveground arsenic planned, and engineers connected Earth imaged the country to marque definite they don't accidentally instrumentality implicit it arsenic Perseverance drives away. 

In photos: 12 astonishing pictures from the Perseverance rover's 1st twelvemonth connected Mars

The pictures came backmost showing the conduit was good retired of the mode and flat, but NASA did person a contingency program successful spot successful lawsuit the conduit ended up upright successful the sand. "The ngo has written a bid of commands for Perseverance to cautiously sound the conduit implicit with portion of the turret astatine the extremity of its robotic arm," bureau officials wrote.

Engineers tested the tube-flattening process with a Perseverance-like rover wrong the "Mars yard," an adapted sandbox astatine the Jet Propulsion Laboratory successful Pasadena, California wherever machines are tested successful conditions akin to the Red Planet. Upright deposits happened astir 5 percent of the clip successful these simulations, which is wherefore the ngo has backup.

The milestone driblet is happening conscionable weeks earlier the extremity of Perseverance's premier ngo connected Jan. 6, 2023; the ngo volition notch 2 Earth years connected the Martian aboveground connected Feb. 18. The rover volition proceed roving via a ngo extension, based connected its subject publications and contributions similar this to the illustration return.

"It's a bully alignment that, conscionable arsenic we're starting our cache, we're besides closing this archetypal section of the mission," Rick Welch, Perseverance's lawman task manager astatine JPL, said successful the aforesaid statement.

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of "Why Am I Taller (opens successful caller tab)?" (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a publication astir abstraction medicine. Follow her connected Twitter @howellspace (opens successful caller tab). Follow america connected Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens successful caller tab) or Facebook (opens successful caller tab).