PERSEVERANCE ROVER ADOPTS A ‘PET ROCK’
Roaming Mars is a lonely existence for Perseverance, but the exploratory rover now has a travelling companion: a hitchhiking ‘pet rock’ that got stuck in one of its wheels. Luckily, the Martian stone won’t impact the rover’s science mission. Perseverance’s front-left wheel accidentally picked up the rock on the 341st Martian day of the Martian year, and it has snuck into images taken by the rover’s front-left hazard avoidance camera. Recent images show the rock is still tumbling along 126 days (123 sols) after it first hitched a ride. A sol, or Martian day, is 37 minutes longer than an Earth day.
The rock has been hitchhiking with Perseverance for just over a quarter of the rover’s mission on the Red Planet. When it first made a home for itself in Perseverance’s wheel, the rover was exploring the Máaz formation – a section of Jezero crater that researchers suspect is made from ancient lava flows. Since then the rover has travelled 5.3 miles though the Octavia E. Butler landing site, where Perseverance first touched down on Mars in February 2021, and past the remains of the Kodiak delta, which once linked an ancient river and lake. The rover will shortly be gearing up for an ascent up one of Jezero crater’s steep slopes, which may dislodge its stoney stowaway. When the pet rock does eventually fall out of the rover’s wheel, it will likely be surrounded by other rocks that are very different from itself because it’s likely of volcanic origin.