Pinkman
JF-Expert Member
- Aug 23, 2017
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Nasa's Perseverance rover landed on Mars at 20:55 GMT on 18 February after almost seven months travelling from Earth.
Since then, it has sent back some amazing images from around its landing site, Jezero Crater, a 49km (30-mile) wide impact depression just north of the Red Planet's equator.
Here are a selection of the pictures sent back from the mission, as Perseverance hunts for signs of past microbial life, seeks to characterise the planet's geology and past climate, and collects Martian rock.
image captionThe first image of the Perseverance rover on the surface was taken from the High Resolution Imaging Experiment camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
image captionThis is the first high-resolution, colour image to be sent back by the cameras on the underside of the rover after its landing.
image captionPerseverance can be seen in this enhanced colour image at its landing site, six days after touchdown. You can see the two bright zones to the sides of the rover that have been scoured clear by the descent stage rockets and the dark material appears to have been funnelled outward both in front and behind the rover.
image captionThis is a view of the rover's deck and provides a good look at PIXL, one of the instruments on the rover's stowed arm that will be used to identify chemical elements.
image captionPIXL also includes a camera that takes close-up images of rock and soil textures.
image captionThis wind-carved rock seen in the panorama shows just how much detail is captured by the camera systems. The rock has been informally named the "harbour seal", for obvious reasons.
image captionA detail taken from the top of the panorama shows the rim of Jezero Crater, Perseverance's landing site. The rim is several kilometres away.
image captionThis image was taken by the "left-eye" of Mastcam-Z. The left and right cameras are next to each other and point in the same direction, providing a stereo view similar to what human eyes would see.
