Page:NASA’s Perseverance Rover Gets the Dirt on Mars.pdf/1





Two holes are left in the Martian surface after NASA’s Perseverance rover used a specialized drill bit to collect the mission’s first samples of regolith – broken rock and dust – on Dec. 2 and 6.

Credits: NASA/JPL­Caltech

The mission’s first two samples of regolith – broken rock and dust – could help scientists better understand the Red Planet and engineers prepare for future missions there.

NASA’s Perseverance rover snagged two new samples from the Martian surface on Dec. 2 and 6. But unlike the 15 rock cores collected to date, these newest samples came from a pile of wind­blown sand and dust similar to but smaller than a dune. Now contained in