Remember the scathing 2021 “seven minutes of terror” video of NASA’s Perseverance rover parachuting over Mars with a rope from its descent level or “jetpack” after a 514-million-mile journey?
What NASA didn’t tell the global observer was that while its astrobiology rover landed safely on the Red Planet, it deposited heat shields, parachutes, steel springs, foam, nets and other “space junk” throughout the ancient riverbed. The robot sent for exploration.
Now, Perseverance and its Ingenuity helicopter continue to locate lasting memories of their impressive entry, descent and landing on Mars. It’s the first rover to do so, with NASA’s Curiosity identifying pieces of its own trash on the floor of Gale Crater.
Should we pollute Mars?
Yes, we, and humans in the long term, will appreciate our “space debris” from these, the early stages of exploration, according to scientists.
More “space junk” photographs of its own landing were captured via NASA’s Mars Perseverance on June 23, 2022.
“When we examine ancient civilizations on Earth, we look through their piles of trash,” said Dr. Brown. Bethany Ehlmann, professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology and Mars rover scientist. “But it’s not just piles of trash, it’s artifacts from our first steps on Mars. “
In short, our interplanetary debris will be a treasure trove for archaeologists in the area in the near future.
“The landing zones of those rovers will one day be national parks when humans finally land on Mars,” Ehlmann said. “And the parts of the landing systems and the foam that would possibly have come off from the rover’s landing will become old markers. “
Of course, it may not be just pieces of foam and steel wedged between the rocks that will constitute the extent of the area agencies’ “area waste. “a dust storm. A similar fate is reserved for the Ingenuity helicopter, as well as the Chinese rover Zhurong, which is lately exploring Utopia Planitia. NASA’s Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity rovers stopped working years ago.
NASA’s Opportunity rover’s 2005 symbol from the remains of the heat shield that traversed the Martian atmosphere.
With the exception of parts of NASA’s and ESA’s helicopter-assisted Mars Sample Return mission, everything that goes to Mars dies on Mars. Take a look at a list of man-made items on Mars and notice that the Red Planet is covered in earth. sites dotted with debris. Some have been detected and tested from orbit, while others, such as several Soviet landers from the 1970s that returned no radio signal, are just estimates. Cleaner on skis and attached through an umbilical cord.
A long-running exhibition in a long-running museum on Mars?
Much of this valuable Martian story is covered in dust, as recreated in the 2015 Hollywood film The Martian when stranded astronaut Mark Watney travels for a month across the Red Planet to dig up the wreckage of NASA’s 1987 Pathfinder lander to use its cameras with Earth. .
“All their lines will be erased, but they will be covered in dust and preserved,” said Alice Gorman, an area archaeologist in the archaeology branch at Flinders University in South Australia. She thinks other people have an emotional bond with many rovers on Mars. “Imagine if the Ingenuity helicopter passed by and photographed Curiosity or one of the old dust-covered rovers, that would be an incredible image,” Gorman said.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this symbol of its own “space waste” on June 13, 2022.
Since humans have not yet landed on Mars, it’s hard to believe that the Red Planet has protected national parks and monuments that detect humans’ first steps on the planet. However, having similar structures on the Moon doesn’t seem that far-fetched.
The Moon is like covered with garbage. There are estimated to be about 500,000 pounds of trash on the moon from boats, wires and heirs, hammers, pliers and, yes, bags of human waste. Most of it, of course, came here from the Apollo missions.
NASA’s history office has a full list of artifacts left on the Moon, and for good reason. “As the Moon becomes more available to national area systems and private companies, it is vital that we look at lunar artifacts for their ancient and clinical value,” it reads. the arrival to the list.
Since there is no environment on the moon, the footprints of the first lunar rovers and, more importantly, the footprints of the first human walkers on the moon in the 60s and 70s will be preserved for several thousand years.
Or will they? Once humans reach the Moon in greater numbers and on personal missions, those first Apollo landing sites will become targets for souvenir hunters.
Apollo 11 – NASA, 1969. Astronaut Edwin E. ” Buzz” Lunar module pilot Aldrin Jr. monitors Apollo landing site. . . [ ] 11 on 20 July 1969. Pack of experiments next to it. The lunar module “Eagle” is in the background on the far right. NASA artist. (Photo via Heritage Space/Heritage Images Getty Images)
“There is an antiquities industry of artifacts looted from archaeological sites and there is also a very large market to collect objects from the area,” Gorman said. We’re going to have to pay attention. “
Gorman thinks we’re going to have to protect the Apollo sites, but before that, revisit them to get a sense of their current state and then compare them as they are replaced over time. Only then can we catch the thieves with our hands in the dough. “Future lunar orbiters will have to monitor those places, track their condition and also collect evidence from the other people plundering them, such as new rover footprints,” said Gorman, who is currently running on inheritance control rules for the Moon. It will be one of the greatest collectibles of all time; We want to start thinking about it very seriously. “
It’s a double-edged sword, of course, because if you produce a list of valuable collectibles on the moon, you immediately inflate their value. “, they are violating a foreign treaty,” Gorman said.
The Apollo 11 site is the later child of historical sites on the Moon, but there is another that is potentially even more important to long-term archaeologists. In 1959, the USSR’s Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to succeed on the surface of the Moon. “In 1957 the first satellite arrived and just two years later a spacecraft hit the moon,” Gorman said. “It’s impressive: the first human site on the moon that also deserves protection.
I wish you transparent skies and big eyes.