Humans ‘Leave’ More Than 7,000 Kilograms of Trash in Mars [Report]

An expert claimed that nearly 16,000 pounds (more than 7,000 kilograms) of human waste on Mars has been collected over the years due to trips to the planet.

The spacecraft that have fallen onto the planet include the Soviet Union's Mars orbiter 2, which made a crash landing in 1971, as well as abandoned equipment, idle rockets, and spaceships.

Scientists worry that humans are not only destroying yet another planet while fighting to rescue our own, but that this rubbish may also contaminate samples being gathered by NASA's Perseverance rover and could jeopardize expensive expeditions to look for life on Mars.

(Photo : NASA via Getty Images)
In this concept illustration provided by NASA, NASA's Perseverance (Mars 2020) rover uses its drill to core a rock sample and will store them in sealed tubes on the planet's surface for future missions to retrieve in the area known as Jezero crater on the planet Mars.

Humans Leave More Than 7,000 Kilograms of Trash on Mars

Cagri Kilic, a postdoctoral researcher in robotics at West Virginia University, wrote in The Conversation that more than 7,118.6 kilograms of human trash have already been left behind by humans during their daring robotic expeditions to Mars.

This estimate was made by analyzing the mass of all Mars rovers and orbiters, deducting from the mass of the ones still in use.

According to the article, however, many of the scrapped components had to be abandoned to protect the spacecraft as they flew through the hostile atmosphere of the Red Planet.

An illustration of this is NASA's Perseverance, which endured seven minutes of hell when it touched down in February 2021 and produced an inevitable quantity of garbage.

My team has spotted something unexpected: It’s a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that set me down on landing day back in 2021. pic.twitter.com/O4rIaEABLu
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) June 15, 2022

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The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs reports that throughout 14 missions, several countries have dispatched 18 human-made spacecraft to Mars.

NASA said that a piece of trash that had been tossed after landing has been found by the Perseverance Mars rover in the middle of August 2022. It's also not the first time scientists have found Mars trash. There is quite a bit of garbage and dirt there.

Types of Trash on Mars

According to NDTV, Kilic said that there are three primary sources of debris on Mars. These consist of abandoned equipment, dormant spacecraft, and crashing spacecraft.

A module that safeguards the spacecraft is necessary for every voyage to the Martian surface, Kilic continued.

This module has a heat barrier for when the vehicle travels through the atmosphere of the planet, a parachute, and landing equipment for a smooth touchdown.

The remains of crashed spacecraft are another significant source of trash.

At least two of the spacecraft have crashed while four others have lost touch soon before or right after landing.

Future Mars missions may be impacted by the debris on Mars' surface, claims Kilic.

There are concerns that the garbage may contaminate the samples that the rovers collected or that it may become tangled in the samples.