Star Wars fans thought they spotted 'lightsaber' on Mars in new NASA pictures

27.12.2022 - 22:07 / dailyrecord.co.uk

New pictures released by NASA have caught the eyes of Star Wars fans as it appears to show an object that looks like a lightsaber on the Mars surface.

While the idea of a real-life lightsaber would no-doubt be exciting for many, NASA has said that fans shouldn't get their hopes up too much. While the object does look like the handle of one of the laser swords used in the George Lucas' films, they actually serve another purpose.

According to the space agency, this tubular object has been confirmed to be a container dropped by the Perseverance Rover.

As reported by the Mirror, the titanium tube on the red planet's surface contains rocks that will be sent back to Earth for research.

This will involve a mission to retrieve the samples in the lightsaber-like tubes as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign.

In a blog post, NASA noted that "based on the architecture of the Mars Sample Return campaign, the rover would deliver samples to a future robotic lander".

There may be a "depot of tubes" by the time that the retrieval missions get underway, giving scientists a good amount of samples to work with. Should Perseverance fail to deliver its samples, the depot will serve as a backup supply for the Return campaign.

Rick Welch, Perseverance's deputy project manager at JPL, said: "Seeing our first sample on the ground is a great capstone to our prime mission period, which ends on January 6.

"It's a nice alignment that, just as we're starting our cache, we're also closing this first chapter of the mission."

The truth of the matter didn't leave internet users from having some fun as many took to social media after seeing the object.

One Tweeted: "BREAKING: Perseverance discovers a lightsaber on the surface of Mars," while another said: "So