NASA rover successfully drills rock on Mars

NASA announced Thursday that a rover successfully drilled a rock on Mars.

Data from NASA’s Perseverance rover indicated that it successfully cored a Mars rock, the agency said in a statement.

#SamplingMars update: first images show a sample in the tube after coring. But pics I took after an arm move are inconclusive due to poor lighting. I’m taking more photos in better light to confirm that we still have an intact core in the tube.

Read more: https://t.co/MqeD68KqYw pic.twitter.com/VYXErWrrEb

— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) September 2, 2021

NASA shared a photo of a rock that was still intact after being cored. However, the agency said additional images were “inconclusive due to poor sunlight conditions.”

“Another round of images with better lighting will be taken before the sample processing continues,” NASA said.

The rover used a rotary percussive drill and a hollow coring bit at the end of a 7-foot robotic arm to extract samples.

Jennifer Trosper, project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement that the cored rock was a “phenomenal accomplishment.”

“The project got its first cored rock under its belt, and that’s a phenomenal accomplishment,” Trosper said. “The team determined a location, and selected and cored a viable and scientifically valuable rock. We did what we came to do. We will work through this small hiccup with the lighting conditions in the images and remain encouraged that there is sample in this tube.”

Perseverance launched in July 2020 and landed in the Jezero Crater basin on Mars in February. The basin is the site of an ancient river.

The rover is looking for signs of ancient life, as well as collecting rock samples for possible return to Earth.

The rover previously attempted to core rock on Mars on Aug. 5 but was unsuccessful. NASA said in a blog post that it believed the rock fragmented to dust or sand as the hole was being drilled.