On April 19th, 2022, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter made its 26th full flight in Martian atmosphere. April 19th also marked one full year of its operations on Mars.
But that is not what got the headlines. What stirred people’s interest was this image beamed back from the footage collected by Ingenuity.
As you can see, this image shows a saucer like structure, damaged, ana piece of fabric lying at some distance.
Everyone from the New York Times to CBS News came up with headlines hinting that this was the crash site of an alien space ship (the stories mentioned that it was not, but the headlines – Eerie footage, NASA sees otherworldly wreckage). Memes also appeared on social media.
It turns out that the footage was not an accident. The 159 second flight was made specifically to get this footage. This was the landing backshell and supersonic parachute of NASA’s Perseverance craft.
NASA has spoken about the images in a detailed report .
You can find out more about the Ingenuity helicopter here: Mars Helicopter – NASA Mars