The Strange Object Discovered by the Perseverance Rover on Mars: Does It Support the Theory That the Planet Was Once Water-Filled?
Recently, NASA shared an intriguing photo, reportedly captured accidentally by the Perseverance rover during its exploration of the Martian surface. It resembles a tangled piece of string.
Immediately, some theories emerged suggesting this is the “fishing line” left behind by fishermen on Mars, implying that the planet was once submerged in water and teeming with fish.
Strange object resembling tangled string on Mars
This theory is not entirely unfounded, as the Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater, which was once a lake more than 3.5 billion years ago, and ancient microbial remains may still be preserved here.
However, another opinion suggests that this is simply debris from the parachute that helped the Perseverance rover land on the Red Planet.
“It is likely that Martian winds blew this string closer to the location of Perseverance. The area where the rover landed is essentially like a debris field,” shared Stuart Atkinson, a British astronomer.
Previously, on June 14, the Perseverance research team also shared a thought-provoking image on Twitter, captured by the rover on the Martian surface and sent back to Earth. The image shows a piece of thermal blanket, which was used to protect the rover from the extreme temperatures it encountered during landing, stuck in a rock crevice on Mars.
For many years, space debris has been a top concern, increasingly mentioned by space agencies. According to experts, fragments and items left behind from missions, such as boots, shovels, or entire vehicles left by the Apollo missions on the Moon, could pose serious contamination risks to other pristine planets.
Looking ahead, it is predicted that over the next half-century, as more space missions are launched and celestial bodies like Mars face the risk of becoming a “junkyard,” the gaps in treaties governing space will become more evident.
Aparna Venkatesan, an astronomy professor at the University of San Francisco, asserts that adhering to protective measures against environmental pollution in space will require lawmakers to recognize these as a shared heritage of human civilization.
On February 18, 2021, the Perseverance rover, designed as a robotic vehicle, officially landed on Mars after traveling 472 million kilometers over a span of seven months in space.
Scientists hope to discover biological forms within ancient sediment samples that Perseverance is designed to extract from Martian rocks and send back to Earth for further analysis. NASA has planned two subsequent missions over the next decade to bring samples back to Earth.
