After 14 space missions to Mars, the POTother space agencies and the human being in general has sent almost 10 tons of equipment to the red planet and seven of them make up the total space debris on the Martian surfacelargely the responsibility of the Perseverance, Curiosity and Opportunity rovers.
The other three tons are in the active phase, so they are not yet considered garbage by scientists, however, although the amount seems small in proportion to the size of Mars, the scientists of the American space agency consider that it can represent a potential danger for the good development of future missions.
According to a report from D.W.Much of this debris has already been located near some landing sites, the reason for NASA’s concern.
Why is there so much garbage on Mars?
In some missions, the exploratory ships detach from some modules or components to complete their journey and many of those objects have fallen on Marsstaying for decades.
In August of this year, the Perseverance rover detected the remains of a thermal blanket from a previous mission.
Disused components, inactive spacecraft and the remains of spacecraft that for some reason have crashed are the main sources of debris on the Martian surface.
During their descent, the space modules drop pieces such as nets, thermal shields, parachutes or other types of accessories and components. Although they are pieces of the same ship, they fall in different places on the red planet and, therefore, dirty various areas of Mars.
Another problem is that on the inner planet farthest from the Sun, the winds that are recorded on it are very strong, so the debris on the surface constantly moves from place to place.
Probably when we get to Mars, we’ll have to pass the broom…