After an earlier sample crumbled to dust, Percy nails its second attempt at drilling a Red Planet rock core.
Following a failed first attempt last month, NASA’s Perseverance rover has successfully drilled and captured a perfect rock core from the Red Planet. This puts scientists one big step closer to their goal of someday returning the rock sample to Earth, in order to study it for signs of ancient microbial life, according to NASA. Perseverance (or “Percy” to its friends) made its latest drill attempt on Wednesday (Sept.1), after selecting a large, thick-looking rock that NASA researchers nicknamed “Rochette.” The boulder sits on a ridge overlooking the nearby floor of Jezero crater, where it has endured the elements of Mars for potentially millions of years. That endurance is exactly what the Perseverance team was looking for; the rover’s first attempt to collect a rock core several weeks ago ended in disappointment, as the rock sample proved too crumbly and literally disappeared from the rover’s grasp.
