Nasa Mars rover spots ‘unexpected’ piece of spacecraft on red planet

Thermal blanket has probably been blowing across surface, space agency said

(Nasa)

Nasa’s Mars rover has spotted an unexpected piece of spacecraft on the surface of the red planet.

The Perseverance lander spotted “something unexpected”, it said: what seems to be a piece of metal that was tucked between Martian rocks.

The Nasa team that controls the lander believes it is a piece of thermal blanket that probably dropped off Perseverance during its landing on the surface.

It was probably part of the descent stage, Nasa said – the “rocket-powered jet pack” that lowered the rover down onto the planet when it arrived last year.

Nasa does not know how the blanket would have made it to the specific spot on Mars. And it is likely to add to concerns about humanity’s impact on space, after warnings that we are littering old rocket and spacecraft parts in orbit and on other planets.

The find was announced by the Perseverance Twitter account, which posts in the lander’s voice.

The team also shared images of the thermal blankets on Earth – which look remarkably similar to the object spotted on Mars.

Nasa and other space agencies take great precautions to avoid the contamination of other planets, which includes concentrated cleaning of landers before they leave the Earth. Perseverance and other Martian rovers are searching for signs of alien life – and that search could be ruined by any organisms that were carried from Earth.

But the US and other countries are also committed to not disturbing the untouched nature of other planets. That has, however, been in doubt as some countries have skirted around international agreements to leave potentially dangerous debris in orbit.