This is the first image sent back by NASA’s Perseverance rover after landing on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.
New Delhi:
NASA released a new photo of the Perseverance rover mission on Mars on Monday. This was the first image obtained of the mission after it landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, at the local mean solar time of 15:53:58. It was selected by public vote and featured as “Picture of the Week” for Week 1 (February 14 – February 20, 2021) of the mission to Mars.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the area in front of it using its built-in hazard avoidance camera at the front left A.
On Friday, NASA had released stunning new photos of Perseverance, including one of the rover being carefully brought to the surface of Mars by a series of cables, the first time such an image was captured.
The high-resolution photo comes from a video taken during the descent of the spacecraft that carried the rover from Earth.
Image of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, captures perseverance as it parachuted down through the atmosphere.
At that point, the descent phase used its six-engine jetpack to slow to a speed of approximately 1.7 miles per hour as part of the ‘skycrane maneuver’, the final stage of the landing.
The three straight lines are mechanical bridles that hold the rover under the downhill stairs, while the coiled cable was used to send the data from the cameras to Perseverance.
When the rover landed, it cut 6.4 meters of cables, allowing the descent stairs to fly away for its own safe landing.
Another new image, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows Perseverance as it skydives through the atmosphere at hundreds of miles per hour.
A second color image shows one of the rover’s six wheels, with several honeycomb stones next to it that are believed to be more than 3.6 billion years old.
Volcanic rock, in particular, can be dated with very high precision once the samples are returned to Earth on a future return mission – an exciting development from a planetary scientific perspective.
Volcanic rock, in particular, can be dated with very high precision once the samples are returned to Earth on a future return mission
The first two images were released shortly after the rover landed on Thursday, but they were in a lower resolution and black and white due to the limited data rate available.
NASA hopes to have more high-resolution photos and videos in the coming days, but doesn’t know yet if it successfully recorded sound on Mars for the first time using microphones.