Given how we humans are targeting Mars with a crewed mission in the not so distant future, there’s an increased interest in what’s going on on the Red Planet. And with all the hardware already in place up there, both in orbit and on the surface, there’s no shortage of news coming from millions of miles away.
The latest machine to be sent to Mars to study it is the Perseverance rover. Having arrived there just a few short months ago, the rover is yet to deliver the expected results of its primary mission (searching for signs of life in the Martian soil), but it does keep us busy with some extraordinary images it keeps sending back.
The most recent of the bunch was just published by NASA, and they show the “boundary between rough rocks and soft dunes” as seen by Perseverance during his most recent travels.
The funny thing about all these images (check gallery for more) is that, if we didn’t know they come from another planet, we might just as easily have discarded them as showing just some boring-looking rocks. And, for all intents and purposes, that’s what they are.
Perseverance is presently located in a vast region of Mars called Jezero Crater (check map below for the exact location, including that of the Ingenuity helicopter). It’s been 173 Martian days since it landed there, and traveled just 1.23 miles (1.97 km) since arriving. That would be a speed of just 37 feet (11 meters) per day, ideal for all the sightseeing the rover seems to be doing up there.
When the rover will eventually get its act together, it will be tasked with searching for signs of life, but also the collection of rocks and regolith samples that may be picked up by a future mission and brought to Earth for study.
The most recent of the bunch was just published by NASA, and they show the “boundary between rough rocks and soft dunes” as seen by Perseverance during his most recent travels.
The funny thing about all these images (check gallery for more) is that, if we didn’t know they come from another planet, we might just as easily have discarded them as showing just some boring-looking rocks. And, for all intents and purposes, that’s what they are.
Perseverance is presently located in a vast region of Mars called Jezero Crater (check map below for the exact location, including that of the Ingenuity helicopter). It’s been 173 Martian days since it landed there, and traveled just 1.23 miles (1.97 km) since arriving. That would be a speed of just 37 feet (11 meters) per day, ideal for all the sightseeing the rover seems to be doing up there.
When the rover will eventually get its act together, it will be tasked with searching for signs of life, but also the collection of rocks and regolith samples that may be picked up by a future mission and brought to Earth for study.
Skirting a boundary between rough rocks and soft dunes. Views from orbit teach us so much about Mars, but there’s nothing like being here and seeing for yourself.
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) August 17, 2021
Latest images: https://t.co/Ex1QDo3eC2 pic.twitter.com/reydl42ftB