NASA's rover captures a new 'exciting' Mars sample

NASA has taken to its social channels to announce that it's Mars rover has snagged its latest sample of the Red Planet.

On the NASA Perseverance Twitter account, the space agency explains that the Perseverance rover has successfully grabbed its eleventh Mars sample, which has the potential to give researchers more clues on the history of Mars and if it ever contained ancient life.

NASA also linked to its website where it outlined its updated plan on getting Perseverance's samples back to Earth and how the new plan now includes two new helicopters that designs will be based on Ingenuity's, Perseverance's scout helicopter currently positioned alongside the rover in the Jezero Crater.

The new plan's method includes landing NASA's sample return mission in the Jezero crater, Perseverance transporting its batch of selected martian samples to a small rocket that will launch from the surface of Mars, then transported to an orbiter for its long journey back to Earth.

NASA estimates that out of the 43 test tubes that Perseverance has available, 38 will be filled with samples. The space agency will pick the highest quality samples for the return trip back to Earth, with a large emphasis being placed on samples that could yield results on Mars' past conditions and whether the planet was ever suitable for life.

As for the two helicopters recently added to NASA's plan, the space agency explained they will be launched later this decade and act as backups in the event that Perseverance is incapable of transporting the martian samples to the rocket. The two helicopters will be different from Ingenuity as they will feature wheels and grappling arms.

NASA estimates that if everything goes to plan, it will be able to transport 30 samples taken from various locations across Mars' Jezero Crater back to Earth by 2033. In other NASA news the space agency's database recently revealed that an asteroid traveling at 72,000 mph is approaching Earth. The asteroid is estimated to be about the size of the Empire State Building wide.

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