By Tim Binnall
NASA scientists have something of an odd mystery on their hands after the space agency's Ingenuity Mars helicopter took flight with an unidentified piece of debris that had somehow gotten stuck to the foot of the craft. The odd discovery was reportedly made late last month as the vehicle took to the air for its 33rd mission cruising through the skies of the Red Planet. The team that operates the helicopter were no doubt bewildered when they noticed that what appeared to be some kind of plastic bag-like material had been snagged by one of the vehicles feet and was wafting in the breeze as it ascended.
Eventually, the curious piece of what is presumed to be space garbage became dislodged from the craft and can be briefly seen falling back down to the surface of Mars. NASA JPL has indicated that they are "looking into" the debris which, they stressed, had "no impact" on the flight. A subsequent assessment upon the craft's landing found that "all telemetry from the flight and a post-flight search and transfer are nominal and show no indication of vehicle damage." The strange straggler is the latest in what has been a series of incidents this year wherein NASA vehicles have stumbled upon human trash on Mars, including a piece of thermal blanket, a drill bit, and a puzzling spaghetti-like object. Should there be aliens hiding somewhere on Mars right now, one imagines that they're not too thrilled with us leaving so much trash behind on their planet.