NASA’s most powerful rover to date regularly returns images of the Red Planet, and you can keep up to date with the latest snapshots from the Persistence robber.
As with the other NASA missions, the photo hub for all Perseverance postcards is that of the rover gallery with “raw images”These images are the raw, unedited images sent from the surface of Mars, before being color corrected or otherwise altered for public publication.
NASA also periodically collects or colorizes raw images in panoramas, which provides more context. The complete gallery of these modified photos is hereThese are also the photos you often see at news conferences and in Space.com stories, as they have been made a bit nicer for public consumption.
Related: Watch the Perseverance rover land on Mars in this epic video
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took several photos of Perseverance’s landing; its High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HIRISE) camera regularly uploads images to this websiteThe orbiter may be able to take more photos of persistence moving on the surface in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out.
You can of course also keep track of what is happening with the mission on social media. Citing any Twitter, Instagram, or Flickr feed that plays with rover images would be an epic task, so we’ll focus on a few examples that (re) focus on NASA or NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where rover operations are accommodated.
The Perseverance Image Bot on Twitter regularly posts new raw images, providing great memories to revisit the NASA gallery. Another great resource comes from Kevin Gill, who officially works as a software engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; in his spare time, Gill processes images of perseverance and other missions and posts the incredible results to a Flickr page and on Twitter
Also make sure to follow the NASA Perseverance mission’s social media feeds, which provide constant updates on all of the rover’s activities, including the nicer images for public consumption. You can follow the mission Twitter or on FacebookNASA also has numerous social media feeds where you might see a few Percy images mixed in with other stuff.
Knowing when to search for images could be a full-time job in itself, but luckily planetary scientist Emily Lakdawalla (formerly of the Planetary Society) posted an informational Twitter thread about how to keep up to date with the robber’s work.
Simply put, most rover activities take place between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. local time on Mars, the hottest time of the day. In order to transmit images, the rover must also be in view of MRO, the common orbiter used to send images to Earth, although that also varies. Since “Mars timeRunning on a 24-hour, 37-minute “Earth Day” should be taken into account, upload timing varies – but Lakdawalla’s thread points you to the best time to take a look.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.