Sealing the Deal

A close-up color photograph shows a gold metal disk in the image center; everything else is black. The outer ring has rectangular indentations at the clock-face positions for 2, 6, and 10. Inside from there, indentations in the face of the disk make two concentric black circles. Just inside those, in the lower right area of the disk, are two rows of inscribed letters and numbers – reversed as if in a mirror, from the viewer’s point of view. Inside that, at the center of the disk, a black circle surrounds a small gold circle inscribed with three numbers, resembling a primer on the bottom of a bullet casing.

Written by Melissa Rice, Professor of Planetary Science at Western Washington University This week, the Perseverance team faced a stubborn engineering challenge. After successfully collecting a core called “Green Gardens” from the “Tablelands” location, the rover struggled to seal the sample tube, despite multiple attempts. This isn’t entirely unprecedented — for a previous sample called … Continue reading Sealing the Deal