NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover runs into puzzling sampling conundrum

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has stumbled into an issue during its first sampling attempt. 

“#SamplingMars is one of my most complicated tasks. Early pics and data show a successful drill hole, but no sample in the tube–something we’ve never seen in testing on Earth,” the rover’s Twitter account announced on Friday. “Mars keeps surprising us. We’re working through this new challenge.” In a release from the agency, the Southern California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which leads the mission wrote that data sent back to Earth after Perseverance’s first rock sampling attempt indicated “no rock was collected.”