NASA's Perseverance Rover Has a Traveling Companion in the Form of a Pet Rock

The Perseverance rover has shared an image of its traveling companion – a pet rock that managed to find its way into the front left wheel of the rover in early February and has traveled more than eight and a half kilometers (5.3 miles) with it since then.

The pet rock occasionally appears in photos taken by Perseverance's onboard Hazcam and probably does not damage the rover or prevent it from functioning properly. NASA says that the rock can fall out at some point when, for instance, the rover will be climbing up the crater rim. If it does, it can land among rocks that are very different from it, confusing future Martina geologists.

The funny thing is that one of the tasks of Perseverance is actually to collect rocks on Mars. However, the rover captures its rocks not with its wheels but with its robotic arm that helps it collect needed samples from the Red Planet.