For the Perseverance Mars rover, second time’s the attraction.

After a disappointing first try in early August, which resulted in an empty take a look at tube, NASA confirmed on Monday that Perseverance had efficiently collected and saved its first pattern of Martian rock whereas exploring Artuby. The half-mile (900 meters) ridgeline is close to an space believed to carry Jezero Crater’s deepest and most historic layers of uncovered bedrock.

The course of to acquire the rock pattern, which is a bit thicker than a pencil, started final Wednesday. That day, Perseverance used the rotary-percussive drill on the finish of its robotic arm to core right into a flat Martian rock, which NASA nicknamed “Rochette,” that was formed like a briefcase.

After it completed coring, Perseverance snapped a photograph of the contents of its unsealed pattern tube—quantity 266, in case you had been questioning—in order that NASA may verify it had collected the rock. Mission controllers confirmed that sure, that was certainly a Martian rock, and despatched the rover directions to complete processing the pattern.

This included measuring and imaging the rock core, hermetically sealing the tube, taking one other photograph of the sealed tube, and eventually, storing the tube.

Perseverance undertaking scientist Ken Farley mentioned in a news release that getting the primary Martian rock pattern was an enormous milestone.

“When we get these samples back on Earth, they are going to tell us a great deal about some of the earliest chapters in the evolution of Mars,” Farley mentioned. “But however geologically intriguing the contents of sample tube 266 will be, they won’t tell the complete story of this place. There is a lot of Jezero Crater left to explore, and we will continue our journey in the months and years ahead.”

This is simply the primary of what NASA hopes are many Martian rock samples collected by Perseverance. The rover has taken greater than 30 pattern tubes to Mars and will fill as many as eight throughout this primary a part of its mission, which is able to final for lots of of Martian days. NASA is working with the European Space Agency on future missions to convey Perseverance’s samples again to Earth for additional examine.

If the 2 area companies make this occur, the samples can be the primary samples dropped at our planet from one other one.

Once Perseverance completes the primary leg of its mission, it can make its method to Jezero Crater’s delta area, which encompasses the fan-shaped stays of the spot the place an historic river met a lake throughout the crater. NASA believes that it’s potential the area could possibly be wealthy in clay minerals. Based on what we all know from Earth, these minerals can protect fossilized indicators of microscopic life.