Nasa wonders how this Perseverance debris got to this place

The Martian landscape is immense and desert. Yes, but that didn’t stop the Perseverance rover from falling head-to-head on one of its own debris… On Monday, June 13, 2022, the rover took a photo of a bright object stuck between two rocks. An object that has no Martian origin!

This is actually a piece of thermal protection from the jet pack, which gently deposited Perseverance on the surface of Mars. This equipment is used to prevent the rover from overheating when it descends into the Martian atmosphere. If finding this type of debris at the landing site is entirely normal, falling on it more than 2 kilometers from the place of descent is unexpected, to say the least.

Its presence so far from the landing site intrigues Nasa scientists: did this debris land there during the descent, or was it carried by the wind in a second stage? Mystery. To find such a piece of debris in the midst of Martian vastness is, in any case, a true stroke of luck!