Another cluster of photographs from the space organization's Perseverance acquaints us with "Sid," the most recent Mars rock that has been chosen for examining as a component of NASA's main goal to dive deeper into the planet and its topographical history. The wanderer's date with Sid marks something of an achievement, as it's probably going to be the last example gathered before Perseverance continues on to a new, already unvisited area.
"I took out my scraped spot device once more, for a look inside my next rock focus on," a tweet from NASA, composed (unsurprisingly) in the voice of the meanderer, peruses. "Mars is obviously excellent on its surface, and, surprisingly, more intriguing under."
Sid sits inside the Jezero Crater, the location on Mars where Perseverance landed in February 2021. It's one of a type of Mars rock that NASA has dubbed "Ch'ał," which is the Navajo word for "frog" (it's pronounced "chesh").
These Ch’ał rocks are found in a particular area of the crater — which is believed to have once housed a body of water — that NASA calls "Santa Cruz." And that location that is scientifically significant because it may be a remnant of Jezero's western delta, which is the next stop on the rover's journey.
Sid is an example of "a higher standing boulder that possibly represents a unique geologic chapter in the crater floor history that we have not yet sampled," Purdue University student collaborator Brad Garczynski wrote for NASA. He added Sid was settled on as the rock of choice after "weeks of discussion" between the science team and rover planners.
The circular pattern you see in the image was created by the tools Perseverance uses to investigate Mars rocks.
In the past, NASA has characterized rovers like Perseverance as "robot geologists." When it comes to the study of rocks, the rover uses a built-in abrasion tool to create the circular pattern you see in the above image.
That's important to the research process because the exterior of any given Mars rock is impacted by the surrounding environment on a daily basis. The goal here is to investigate the planet's geological history, and there may be clues to that history hidden beneath any given Mars rock's dusty exterior.
A little-known U.S. spaceport shoots into the big rocket scene
On Wallops Island, a remote community on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, a press corps assembled camera tripods in an open field and waited for the countdown on wind-chilled metal bleachers.
Off in the distance was a rocket appearing no bigger than a grain of rice. One member of the party noted that the marshy grasses skirting the view on this February day were much taller than at the last launch.
A smoke plume enveloped the Antares rocket only for a moment. The bleachers, a couple of miles from the launchpad, vibrated — a drumroll for the capsule headed to the International Space Station. The rocket soon emerged from the cloud, scaling the sky, until it shrank out of sight.
Quite a 21st-century fireworks show for a bucolic area of Victorian farmhouses and roaming wild ponies. How did the tiny barrier island, of all places, become a NASA launch site, a newcomer asked Patrick O'Neill, an International Space Station spokesman.
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