Humans made it to Mars, and dumped 7,000 kg of trash

It's true: humans leave trash everywhere they go, and clearly, even Mars is no exception. Mars has always fascinated us, and now, it has been 50 years since we sent our first mission to Mars. With billions of dollars spent on each mission, we sure did leave our trash there.

A study was recently done by Cargi Kilic, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Robotics West Virginia University. This study was later published by The Conservation and it shows that humans have dumped over 7,000 kg of trash on Mars. 

The question is: Do we want Mars to become another Earth, but in the bad ways?

What did the study show? According to Kilic, the red planet has over 7,118.6 kg of man-made waste.

How did he arrive at the data? He calculated this figure by analysing the mass of all Mars rovers and orbiters. He then deducted it from the total number of operable ones. 

Debris on Mars comes from two main sources: 

• Discarded hardware of rovers and other spacecraft
• Inactive spacecraft or crashed spacecraft

Trash accumulation over the years: A lot of little bits of trash have been found on Mars over the years - like the netting material found in July 2022 by NASA.  

Earlier this year, on June 13, the Perseverance rover (NASA's rover from the Mars Exploration Program) spotted a large, shiny thermal blanket wedged between some rocks 1.25 miles (2 km) from where the rover landed.

Both Curiosity (Nasa's car-sized Mars rover as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission) in 2012 and Opportunity (NASA's robotic rover) in 2005 also came across debris from their own landing vehicles.

For example, the wheels of the Curiosity rover have been damaged over the years, leaving behind small bits of aluminium.

• A major component of Martian trash is the module that protects spacecraft during landing.
• The module includes:
• a heat shield,
• landing hardware, and
• a parachute.
• When a rover lands, it discards the module and breaks into small pieces.

Point to be noted: The study does not take into consideration these tiny bits of trash, which will in turn definitely increase the net volume of trash.

The bigger picture: Today, the main concern with trash on our red neighbour is its ability to interfere with other Mars missions. There are worries that the trash could taint samples that the rovers obtained, or perhaps become entangled in the material. 

Bottomline: Humans should learn to pick up after them, on Earth as on Mars.