NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars just snagged its newest rock sample (photos) - Space.com
The new sample comes from the same rock Perseverance sampled earlier this month!The car-sized robot just snagged its fourth Red Planet rock sample, drilling another core from an intriguing stone that it first sampled a little over a week ago.I'm doubling up on samples at some high-priority targets like this one," Perseverance rover team members wrote Wednesday (Nov. 24) via the mission's official Twitter account, posting two photos of the sampling operation as well.
Related: Where to find the latest Mars photos from NASA's Perseverance rover.The rover is hunting for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting dozens of samples, which a joint NASA-European Space Agency campaign will haul to Earth, perhaps as early as 2031.
But one of those tubes is empty: The first rock the robot tried to sample, back in August, proved to be exceptionally soft, crumbling to bits that didn't make it into the designated titanium tube.
—In photos: NASA's Mars Perseverance rover on the Red Planet.—Perseverance rover confirms existence of ancient Mars lake and river delta.
The newly collected sample comes from the same rock that Perseverance drilled on Nov.