NASA just saved a precious drill stuck on Mars since 8 months from 212 million kilometres away

NASA recently carried out a tricky manoeuvre from 212 million kilometres away, when a drill on the Perseverance rover got stuck in a rock sample. The rover is currently exploring the Jezero crater on Mars. Recently, while poking at the rocks, a part of its drill got lodged in a rock. Scientists back on Earth found themselves in a bind, racking their brains about how to dislodge a drill from another planet. The problem could have caused Perseverance to lose a precious tool, as letting go of it would have been easier. However, that would have left it without a way to retrieve the rock samples. But the engineers pulled an incredible feat and managed to pull it out. A NASA spokesperson told Mashable on Wednesday, "The team was working to extract a drill bit from the most recent sample collection attempt, which was successfully accomplished as of late Tuesday night."

They added that the rover was designed for such an eventuality, and even if it had to lose a drill bit, it had others on board. NASA did not reveal exactly how it was able to get the drill out of the Martian rock. Jezero Crater has been an area of interest on Mars because scientists believe a river once flowed into a delta here. The crater is believed to have formed after a collision 4.6 billion years ago. There are layered rocks in an area called the Witch Hazel Hill in this region of Mars that consist of alternating light and dark bands.

Drill on Perseverance was stuck since April

Earlier this month, the rover dug into one of the light-toned layers filled with tiny rock pieces. Recently, it was checking out the dark ones when pictures beamed back showed that the drill was stuck. NASA believes this happened on April 22.

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Perseverance has been collecting samples from Mars, filling up a tube with dirt and rocks. NASA plans on bringing these samples back to Earth as part of a return mission and is aiming to do so by 2030. However, its original plan has effectively failed because of high costs, and now it is looking at alternative ways to bring the samples to Earth.