NASA helicopter takes pictures of mysterious debris stuck in its leg

NASA’s Helicopterthe first plane to fly in another world, had an unexpected passenger along part of its last journey on Mars: a piece of debris.

On September 24, the drone completed its 33rd flight. During the flight, the helicopter’s navigation camera, or Navcam, captured images of the helicopter taking off with a piece of debris that looked like a plastic candy wrapper hanging from one of its legs.

The object eventually fell off the helicopter’s leg and returned toward the surface of Mars, as shown in the video below. It is still not clear what it was.

During the flight, the small helicopter reached an altitude of about 33 feet and traveled 365 feet west in 55.2 seconds, according to NASA.

in Blog postHowever, NASA said the debris was not visible in footage from the previous Ingenuity flight.

“All telemetry from flight and post-flight searches and transfers are nominal and show no indication of vehicle damage,” NASA officials said, adding that “the March 2020 Creativity and Perseverance teams are working to determine the source of the wreck.”

NASA did not immediately respond to an Insider’s request for more information.

Tasked with searching for signs of ancient life, Perseverance—with creativity in its belly—landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, after a seven-month 300 million-mile journey. Our robot envoy will collect samples that will eventually be returned to Earth, most likely As early as 2033.

Scientists’ main concern about debris on Mars is the threat it poses to current and future missions. The Perseverance and Ingenuity team documents all the debris they find to make sure it doesn’t contaminate samples collected by the rover, according to NASA Blog Post.

Creativity and perseverance have unearthed pieces of interplanetary junk before. in july, Perseverance spotted a tangle of noodle-like materialWhich turned out to be a network of thermal blankets that the robot uses to adjust the temperature of its devices. in April, Creativity Takes Overview One of the landing gear that helped the rover complete its impressive entry, descent and landing on Mars.