NASA Mars Helicopter Wreckage Captures Images of Strange Wreckage on the Red Planet

NASA’s helicopter, Ingenuity, has completed a total of 72 flights on the Red Planet.

The helicopter, which has flown dozens of missions on Mars, once captured an “extraordinary” sight of space debris scattered across the red sands.

Of course, it’s an extraordinary sight—it was taken on another world. But perhaps we, as a species, need to get more accustomed to the idea of witnessing signs of life or remnants on surfaces beyond Earth.

For now, we can only send technology to other worlds. However, it’s worth noting that we’re just 121 years past learning how to develop flying machines, so imagine where we could be by the end of this century.

As part of the Mars 2020 mission, NASA sent its Perseverance rover, which carried the Ingenuity helicopter underneath. Initially, Ingenuity was only supposed to perform five flights over Mars.

In the end, the helicopter completed 72 flights and became the first aircraft to successfully make a powered and controlled flight on another world.

The plan was for the helicopter to reach areas the rover couldn’t safely access and capture a series of images so we could observe this alien landscape. In 2022, Ingenuity captured an incredible view.

Space debris, scattered on the red sands and slightly tinged by contact, now lay on the nearly silent surface of the Red Planet—a collection of human-made objects in an otherworldly setting.

“There’s definitely a sci-fi element to it. It radiates an otherworldly vibe, doesn’t it?” said Ian Clark, an engineer who worked on Perseverance’s parachute system, to The New York Times.

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s also worth an infinite amount of engineering insight.”

If you’re thinking this was the work of extraterrestrial beings, I’m sorry to say it’s not. The scattered debris on the red sands is human-made.

While it might seem like something from a sci-fi story, these remnants are not evidence of aliens living among us or visiting places as far as Mars.

If we find space debris on another planet, it’s because we put it there. What Ingenuity discovered was part of the landing gear used to bring both the helicopter and the Perseverance rover to Mars.

When it comes to space, humans are messy. Our planet’s orbit is littered with debris we’ve sent up there but no longer need.

And now, it seems, we’re starting to scatter our debris on other worlds as well.

Maybe one day, we’ll reach Mars and be able to clean all of this up, or perhaps we’ll leave these remnants as markers of human space exploration history.

According to the Natural History Museum, there are about 2,000 active satellites orbiting Earth. However, there are approximately 3,000 “dead” satellites that are no longer in use, still floating up there.

There are also thousands of other pieces of debris circling our planet, posing risks to spacecraft and our future space exploration hopes.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech