NASA's perseverance rover captured imagines earlier this week of trash that human actions have caused as it is not part of the ecosystem of the planet. Bits of plastic and aluminum and other materials used by NASA have been discovered by the rover on Mars.
Business Insider states that Mars is slowly, but surely becoming a junkyard for humans, showing the carelessness we have when it comes to littering, even on another planet.
The engineers behind the perseverance rover from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have mentioned through a tweet that the materials discovered are similar to the ones used to build the rocket that delivered the rover to Mars.
"That shiny bit of foil is part of a thermal blanket – a material used to control temperatures. It’s a surprise finding this here: My descent stage crashed about 2 km away. Did this piece land here after that, or was it blown here by the wind?" (NASA JPL)
Earlier this year, many other pictures have been captured by the rover showing space junk that has been created by humans for many years now. Although a lot of the satellites and rockets that are sent off into space have their descent controlled onto Earth, there are a few that get lost and end up crashing on other planets.
Taking into consideration that we are the only entities in this galaxy, we are the ones making all of this junk and this is a growing concern for space agencies. There is already an unpleasant level of space junk present in our solar system which sometimes interferes with satellites and other telescopes sent into space.
Last week the James Webb space telescope had been hit by junk causing minor damage to the wings. At the end of the day it is the responsibility of space agencies as they are the ones sending junk into space, therefore they should not complain about their own junk affecting their space equipment.
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