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Tracks Made by Perseverance Show Up in the First Aerial Color Photo of Mars

Remember how NASA kept telling us how the Ingenuity helicopter flight over Mars is such a big deal and what it could mean for the future of alien worlds exploration? Well, here’s a taste of that in the world’s first-ever aerial color image of the Red Planet.
Shot of Mars taken by Ingenuity from above 1 photo
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
To date, over the course of roughly one week, Ingenuity flew three times on Mars, the last such achievement taking place over the weekend. The image we have here was captured on the second run, which took place on April 22.

Described by NASA as the “first color image of the Martian surface taken by an aerial vehicle while it was aloft,” the shot shows not only the dust and soil of the planet but also the marks the Perseverance rover made as it moved about Mars.

According to the American space agency, the shot was taken while the helicopter was 17 feet (5.2 meters) above ground, when it was pitching so it could begin its short trip sideways over the planet. The photo also shows a “portion of the landing pads on two of the helicopter’s four landing legs.”

Granted, this image might not be much to look at, but it does open up exciting new prospects in space exploration.

To date, this activity has been limited to high orbital satellites that can only do so much in giving us a close-up of the soil and on-the-ground rovers that move very slowly and are perpetually oblivious to the bigger picture. Imagine how much faster discoveries will be made using flying machines to back rovers and satellites.

Ingenuity is just the test machine that may open the doors to more of them being dispatched to alien worlds, and a lot of activities are planned for it over the next month. We’ll just have to wait and see if it too stumbles upon something extraordinary.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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