Now scientists can't wait to get their hands on the red rocks. NASA has drilled some rocks on Mars: what secrets they hold.
It sounds strange to say but Mars is a pretty busy planet these days. For Mars, of course, that is an inhospitable place more like hell than any other ecosystem capable of preserving life intact.
The Red Planet's population, however, includes NASA's Perseverance rover and a similar vehicle capable of operating in space, sent up there by China - of which, by the way, a photo is available showing it in a cute selfie, the first selfie on Mars, no doubt.
After discovering what's in the heart on the fourth planet in the Solar System, the rover reinvented itself as a "digger" to collect some rocks for NASA scientists to analyze. What do they hide the reddish stones of the planet closest to Earth?
How Perseverance has managed to collect some rocks on Mars
Perseverance has extracted a rock with a hollow drill, in whose hole is precisely remained embedded the precious mineral, which in the future will be examined by scientists. It would be, according to the researchers who have received the photographic material of the extraction, "a sample with a marvelously perfect nucleus".
The same ones have then drawn a sigh of relief, because a similar previous attempt had in fact proved unsuccessful. It won't be Perseverance that brings the rocks back to Earth, but another mission, set to reach the Red Planet in the next few years. It's exciting to imagine that something born in a place so remote and distant can finally arrive right here among us, in the advanced laboratories of scientists who at this point will strive to draw all the knowledge possible.
When the rocks collected by the Perseverance rover will arrive on Earth by scientists
Unfortunately it is not a goal that will be achieved in a short time: the deadline at the moment extends until 2030. It will be then that scientists can get their hands on the piece of rock and study it. In the meantime, the samples collected by the rover will remain on the surface of Mars, waiting for another transport, which will have to make Earth-Mars to take the rocks, then the reverse path, to get the rocks to scientists.
Giuseppe Giordano