Mars is no doubt a lonely place to be, but for more than a year NASA’s Perseverance rover has had a little pal traveling with it. This is the rock that has been stuck rolling around in the wheel of the rover 427 sols or day on Mars.
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00:00Mars is no doubt a lonely place to be, but for more than a year, NASA's Perseverance
00:08rover has had a little pal traveling with it.
00:11This is the rock that has been stuck rolling around in the wheel of the rover for 427 sols
00:16or days on Mars, traveling always with the rover over miles and miles of the Martian
00:21surface.
00:22The rock was first discovered by the SuperCam team back in February last year.
00:26They weren't sure how it made its way in there, but it didn't seem like it was going
00:29to go anywhere, rolling around in the wheels as Perseverance wheeled around Mars.
00:33NASA experts say the rock likely wasn't doing any damage, but they were curious how it was
00:37hanging on.
00:38Though a big part of that is likely because Perseverance doesn't really move that fast
00:42or that far at a given time.
00:43In fact, since the rock hopped on for a ride, the rover has only traveled around 6.2 miles.
00:48However, some jokingly speculate that Perseverance simply wanted the companionship, which leads
00:53us to believe there might be some turbulent social dynamics on Mars, and that the Ingenuity
00:57Mars Helicopter simply wasn't very good company.