This story is a part of Welcome to Mars, our sequence exploring the purple planet.
After a triumphant arrival final week, NASA’s Perseverance rover has had an opportunity to catch its breath and take a very good lengthy look across the purple planet. On Monday, NASA unveiled new photographs and video from Mars, together with a stunning panorama displaying the rover’s view of its new residence, Jezero Crater.
The panorama is made up of six photographs snapped by the car’s navigation cameras on Feb. 20, 2021. It reveals a large, dusty and rocky panorama. The crater was as soon as residence to a lake and the rover will likely be on the lookout for indicators of historical microbial life within the space.
“Touchdown on Mars is a rush of pressure, drama, and noise. Then, when the mud clears: tranquility and grandeur,” the Perseverance team tweeted on Monday together with a video model of the panorama.
On Monday, NASA additionally launched an eye-popping video of the touchdown course of and audio collected from the floor by a microphone on the rover. The company shared some further images of curiosity, together with a view of the rover’s deck and its stowed arm.
It is notable how clear the rover takes care of its dusty touchdown. NASA is at the moment checking programs and making ready for floor operations, which is able to finally embody dropping off the experimental Ingenuity helicopter and gathering samples for later return to Earth.
There’s one more notable image that was revealed by NASA on Monday. This one doesn’t come from the rover itself. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) looked down at the landing area with its HiRise camera and spotted all the different components of the arrival process scattered across Mars.
The annotated image shows the parachute and back shell, the descent stage, the rover itself and the discarded heat shield that protected the machine as it blasted through the atmosphere.
MRO’s long-distance view is the perfect counterpoint to the Perseverance panorama and close-up. It’s a big planet and there’s lots to explore.
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