Final images of the creation reveal an entire blade that has separated from the helicopter

It has now been several weeks since NASA's stubborn helicopter arrived at Mars, clevernessIt made its last flight over the red planet.

This happened last month. On January 6, Ingenuity flew 40 feet (12 m) into the sky but then made an unplanned premature landing after just 35 seconds. Twelve days later, operators intended to troubleshoot the vehicle with a quick up-and-down test. Data from the vehicle indicated that it climbed to 40 feet again during this test, but then communications dropped ominously at the end of the flight.

On January 20, NASA restored communications with the helicopter, but the space agency announced the end of its flight days later An image of a car's shadow It showed that at least one of its blades had sustained minor damage. This culminated in the end of an amazing job cleverness Exceeded all expectations.

During a press conference to discuss the end of the mission, NASA officials said they may never know exactly what happened during the mission clevernessTwo fatal trips in the end. But thanks perseverancethe rover that brought cleverness To the surface of Mars and help relay communications to Earth, engineers captured powerful evidence last weekend.

Find the missing blade

The rover is now moving away from the helicopter and toward other interesting scientific horizons. Having recently reached a distance of approximately 1,500 feet (450 metres). cleverness, perseverance It will likely never be close again. However, as it moved away, the rover pointed its SuperCam Remote Micro-Imager at the helicopter one last time. These images, taken this weekend, were sent back to Earth on Sunday. A German design student, Simeon Schmaus, processed some of these images to form a mosaic showing the helicopter and its surroundings in the Neretva Vallis, an ancient canal through which water once flowed.

The new images are remarkable in how revealing they are cleverness More clearly than before, and shows that one of the rotor blades has completely broken off. Further investigation revealed that this blade was located approximately 15 meters away cleverness On the red sands of Mars, it appears to be moving away from the helicopter before or during the landing of the rover on its final flight last month.

This additional data will undoubtedly help the engineers and scientists who flew the helicopter piece together its final moments, and perhaps make the design of future flying vehicles on Mars and other worlds more robust.