Sad News From Mars: Nasa Perseverance Loses Its Best Friend

Last week NASA and its fans received shocking news from space: the Mars rover Perseverance, also known as Percy, has lost its “pet” and its best friend: “Rock Friend”.

The exploration vehicle has been on Mars for more than two years and regularly sends its latest discoveries back to Earth. Now Perseverance has reached the end of an era: in February 2022, Percy had charged a Mars stone – which has now left him again.

The mismatched pair had moved about 10 kilometers across the surface of Mars over a period of 427 sols (one sol is one revolution of Mars, which is one day on the Red Planet). He was affectionately nicknamed “Rock Friend” by space explorers. Since the beginning of his friendship with Percy, they have followed him from Earth after he clung to the rover’s front left wheel. His arrival on board was detected by one of the rover’s Hazard Avoidance Cameras (HazCams).

Gwénaël Caravaca is a Martian geologist and sedimentologist. Caravaca, who has been working for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory since 2019, has regularly shared Perseverance and Rock Friend’s adventures on Twitter, where many followed the extraordinary friendship. Some of the channel’s followers were reminded of Wilson, Tom Hanks’ volleyball partner from the movie Cast Away.

Many Rock Friend followers are visibly dismayed by news of the sudden eruption of the Martian rocks. “We all knew this day would come, but still…,” writes one user, for example.

Others can already laugh at the tragedy:

And still others are just mad at NASA for leaving Rock Friend “just like that”:

Perseverance is based on the design of its still-roaming predecessor, the Curiosity, but is bigger. It is about the size of a car and weighs more than a ton. When the rover isn’t walking his pet, Perseverance drills into the surface of Mars looking for evidence of ancient microbial life.

Now Percy must find a new friend. However, as the rover engineers announced, the chances of this happening aren’t very high: If the rover has to climb slopes, rocks can get stuck in its wheels from time to time. In addition, rocks can become loose as Percy moves over loose terrain and his weight breaks the rocks into pieces.

(lacquer)