Friday 23 September 2022 07:47 PM Mars is already TRASHED: Humans have left more than 15,000 pounds of debris on ... trends now
Humans have left more than 15,000 pounds of trash on Mars in the last 50 years and not a single person has ever stepped foot on the red planet.
Cagri Kilic, a postdoctoral research fellow in robotics at West Virginia University, analyzed the mass of all rovers and orbiters sent to Mars and subtracted the weight of what is currently in operation, resulting in 15,694 pounds of debris.
The trash includes discarded hardware, inactive spacecraft and those that crashed on the surface - specifically the Soviet Union’s Mars orbiter 2 that made a crash landing in 1971.
Not only are humans already polluting another planet, but scientists fear the debris could contaminate samples being collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover that is currently searching for ancient life on Mars.
A scientist calculates there is 15,694 pounds of trash on Mars. Most of it stems from discarded hardware like this thermal blanket that protected NASA's Perseverance survive its descent through the hellish atmosphere
Much of the garbage is inevitable, as many of the parts have to be discarded in order to protect craft as it soars through the Red Planet’s hellish atmosphere - including NASA's Perseverance that endured the seven minutes of hell when it landed in February 2021.
The rover, which is collecting samples on Mars that will be brought back to Earth, has captured images of trash while on its mission.
In June, NASA's team on Earth spotted a light in the distance in an image sent back by Perseverance, which they then directed the rover to take a look.
A few weeks later, Perseverance entered the Hogwallow Flats region and acquired a high-resolution, 360-degree Mastcam-Z panorama.
The Ingenuity helicopter snapped an image of the landing equipment used during its arrival with Perseverance. Pictures is a parachute and the cone-shaped backshell that protected the rover in space
