NASA rover finds weird, "mysterious" object on Mars

When a spacecraft screams through Mars' atmosphere at some 12,000 mph, releases a giant supersonic parachute, and ultimately abandons said parachute along with rocket-powered landing gear and a heat shield, it's inevitable that debris will scatter over the Martian landscape.

In June, NASA's Perseverance rover spotted paper-like trash caught between some rocks. And in July, the rover stumbled across what is likely a tangle of cord, perhaps from the parachute.

The internet has labeled this a "mystery object." But its origins, near where the Perseverance rover landed in 2021, aren't too mysterious. Perseverance rumbled by its parachute and other landing gear in April. NASA's car-sized robot hasn't traveled too far from its landing spot, journeying 7.3 winding miles through the Jezero Crater, a place planetary scientists think once teemed with water.

In other words, the rover is driving through a zone of landing debris.

The NASA Perseverance rover will almost certainly find more trash as it explores the red planet. It has a packed schedule. It's currently:

• The James Webb telescope's first stunning cosmic images are here
• What NASA actually said about the space rock that hit the Webb telescope
• Compelling Mars photo shows Martian water flowed way more recently than we think
• If a scary asteroid will actually strike Earth, here's how you'll know
• How NASA's Venus probe will survive hell and make unprecedented discoveries

• Collecting rock samples that will one day be rocketed back to Earth by a future spacecraft

• Scoping terrain for the rock sample return mission to land

• Lasering rocks as it seeks evidence of past primitive life on Mars

There's still no evidence, however, that life has ever existed anywhere beyond Earth. But on Mars, a dried-up river delta in the Jezero Crater may hold some compelling clues.