NASA's Perseverance Rover deposits its first of 10 samples of Martian rock to be returned to Earth

NASA's Perseverance Rover has finally deposited its first sample of Martian rock to be returned to Earth. The car-sized robot began its mission to find ancient biomarkers in the clay on the Red Planet on April 22, which could indicate if alien life ever existed there. It has been roaming around a delta to look for sampling sites that might contain ancient microbes and organics, before drilling down to extract a specimen. Most of those it has collected so far remain in its belly, however this one is the first to be dropped at the base of the delta, and may be retrieved in a future mission. This titanium tube (pictured) contains a core of igneous rock extracted from a region of Mars' Jezero Crater called'South Séítah' on January 31 NASA's Perseverance rover (pictured) chooses a sample using its suite of onboard instruments to detect whether organic molecules are present in some rock before coring. Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with a'near-dead' dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere.