Florida, United States
The team of Rover Perseverance published the first color photos of Mars, taken from the point of arrival in the Jezero crater. In a panoramic view, a flat landscape is appreciated, dominated by a sandy surface from which some smaller rocks and stones emerge. In the background you can see an elevation in the ground.
In an informational meeting on the rover’s status after its first hours on the bottom of Mars, a photo taken with a camera installed on the ‘jetpack– the retro rocket structure from which Perseverance was dropped, tied with nylon cables from a crane. The color photo shows the rover still in the air, just before its wheels hit the ground.
Another image shows one of the rover’s wheels sitting on a sandy surface with rocks and loose stones around it. It is interesting to know whether they are of volcanic or sedimentary origin.
Perseverance, whose systems are in good working order after the check they have undergone after arriving on the red planet, will look for signs of ancient microbial life, collect carefully selected rocks and regolith (broken rocks and dust) samples for their future return to Earth, it will characterize the geology and climate of Mars and pave the way for human exploration ‘in situ’.
Their destination is a basin where scientists believe an ancient river flowed into a lake and deposited fan-shaped sediment known as a delta. Scientists believe the environment here likely preserved signs of every life that happened billions of years ago.