Drill

The Mars rover Perseverance has pebbles stuck in its drill. NASA has a plan to fix it.

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NASA’s Perseverance rover will dump its latest Mars sample to unclog pebbles from its drill.  Perseverance mission managers made the unexpected announcement that they had to dump out Percy’s latest sample via a blog post on Friday (Jan. 14). The team even shared in the post that they never thought they would have to do … Read more

Perseverance Has Run Into a Problem on Mars: Pebbles

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A small pile of pebbles is clogging up the Perseverance Mars rover’s operations.   The rover, which is collecting rock samples for eventual return to Earth, began to struggle on Dec. 29, after extracting a core from a rock the mission team nicknamed “Issole.”   According to a NASA blog, the problem occurred in the device that transfers … Read more

Trees Drill into Deep Bedrock for Water Surprisingly Often

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Naturalists have long noted isolated examples of tree roots boring far down through loose soil and into the unforgiving bedrock below—rare incursions that were deemed a mere curiosity. But in 2013 hydrologist Daniella Rempe probed deep into a northern California hillside and found tree roots extracting substantial amounts of moisture from pores and crannies in … Read more