News > 'I've Got It!' NASA Confirms Perseverance Mars Rover Got Its First Piece of Rock

'I've Got It!' NASA Confirms Perseverance Mars Rover Got Its First Piece of Rock

NASA confirmed Monday that its Perseverance Mars rover succeeded in collecting its first rock sample for scientists to pore over when a future mission eventually brings it back to Earth. “I’ve got it!" the space agency tweeted, alongside a photograph of a rock core slightly thicker than a pencil inside a sample tube.

Perseverance's sampling and caching system is the most complex mechanism ever sent to space, with over 3,000 parts.