Perseverance Pays Off: Rock Sample Collected on Mars

NASA’s newest Mars rover has successfully collected its first rock sample for return to Earth, after last month’s attempt came up empty. The Perseverance rover's chief engineer, Adam Steltzner, called it a perfect core sample, per the AP. "I’ve never been more happy to see a hole in a rock," he tweeted Thursday. A month ago, Perseverance drilled into much softer rock, and the sample crumbled and didn't get inside the titanium tube. The rover drove a half-mile to a better sampling spot to try again. Team members analyzed data and pictures before declaring success.

Perseverance arrived in February at Mars' Jezero Crater — believed to be the home of a lush lakebed and river delta billions of years ago—in search of rocks that might hold evidence of ancient life. NASA plans to launch more spacecraft to retrieve the samples collected by Perseverance; engineers are hoping to return as many as three dozen samples in about a decade. "Be patient, little sample, your journey is about to begin," Steltzner said.

Perseverance has already been a groundbreaking little rover. It sent back to Earth the first video of a Mars landing and the first audio from that planet. In a statement, NASA said a Martian breeze can be heard about 10 seconds into the recording. Perseverance also sent back stunning images of the red planet. (More Perseverance stories.)