NASA releases photographs of the holes in the tires of the latest Mars rover

NASA's Mars rover named Perseverance has been exploring the surface of the Red Planet since February 2021, and with such valuable scientific exploration taking place it unfortunately comes at a cost.

Nothing lasts forever. Not even the engineering achievements made to create NASA's Curiosity rover and place it on the surface of the Red Planet. Since 2012, the rover has been documenting its exploration of the Red Planet, capturing valuable scientific data in the form of images. Curiosity's main objective is to search for any evidence of ancient microbial life once living on Mars, and if proven correct, the discovery would truly be one of the most significant scientific achievements in human history as there would now be evidence of life existing outside of Earth.

NASA has taken to its blog to showcase the costs that come with this exploration, and seemingly, the price of traversing Mars' terrain is that you will eventually get holes in your tires. The rover has endured Mars' harsh environment for many years now, and of its six wheels, some are in better shape than others. NASA points out that the right-middle wheel is probably in the worst shape out of the bunch as it has a hole so big you can see the mechanisms inside the wheel.

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"MAHLI wheel imaging. This is a traverse activity where we do a short drive, take photos of the wheels, do another short drive and take more photos, such that we are getting imaging of the entire circumference of our wheels. This is an activity we do periodically to assess the state and health of the wheels. For full documentation of our wheel state, we will drive seven meters over the course of about three hours," writes NASA

Holes in Curiosity's wheels have been forming for many years now, so this is hardly surprising for NASA. Additionally, to reduce the mounting damage to wheels, NASA teams analyze Curiosity's path ahead and plot it out with the priority of minimal resistance.