'Lightsaber' on Mars plays important role on Red Planet

NASA has shared exciting news of a major landmark in mankind's exploration of Mars - and in response, people have been banging on about Star Wars.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover deposited its first sample tube on the surface of Mars, but people couldn't get over how much it looks like a lightsaber.

Watch a video about the mission here:

NASA shared a photo of the sample on Mars' surface on Twitter, captioning the post: "One small sample tube. Built on Earth by caring humans; filled on Mars by an inquisitive robot.

"Now it sits waiting for a potential pickup and return journey, not many years from now."

In the comments, scores of people quipped about the sample's likeness to the Jedi weapon.

"Someone dropped their lightsaber," one person wrote.

"150 years from now when we forgot about this someone is going to find a lightsaber on Mars..." another added.

Even Laurie Leshin, the director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - which developed and operates the rover - got in on the action.

"Lots of people saying the Mars Sample Tube looks like a lightsaber," she tweeted. "I've been holding out my hand to my computer screen to see if it will be transported from Mars, since as Director of @NASAJPL I'm pretty sure the Force is with me (right?).

"No joy so far but I'll keep trying!"

Of course, the sample tube is actually serving a very important purpose.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The titanium tube - containing rock from Mars - was placed on the surface of the Red Planet on Wednesday (21 December), with another nine to be deposited alongside it over the course of the next two months.

If you're wondering why they're dropping samples from Mars on Mars, it's because NASA is quite wisely building humanity's first sample depot on another planet.

The Mars Sample Return campaign ultimately aims to deliver samples from Mars to Earth, but should something go t**s up in this incredibly complex operation, this depot will be called upon for backup samples.

NASA explained: "Perseverance has been taking duplicate samples from rock targets the mission selects. The rover currently has the other 17 samples (including one atmospheric sample) taken so far in its belly.

"Based on the architecture of the Mars Sample Return campaign, the rover would deliver samples to a future robotic lander. The lander would, in turn, use a robotic arm to place the samples in a containment capsule aboard a small rocket that would blast off to Mars orbit, where another spacecraft would capture the sample container and return it safely to Earth.

"The depot will serve as a backup if Perseverance can't deliver its samples. In that case, a pair of Sample Recovery Helicopters would be called upon to finish the job."

The first sample to drop was a chalk-size core of igneous rock informally named 'Malay', which was collected on 31 January 2022 in a region of Mars' Jezero Crater called 'South Séítah'.