The new panoramic image of Mars thanks to NASA’s Perseverance rover is written in capital letters. That’s 2.5 billion pixels of rocks, sand, sky, and parts of the rover. It is, without a doubt, the most detailed view of the Martian surface ever captured.
an epic moment
Since the Perseverance rover touched down on the Red Planet early last year, we’ve seen plenty of shots of the surface, but none in as much detail as this one. It is a huge mosaic made up of more than 1,000 individual images that show us the arid surface of an ancient delta in Jezero Crater, precisely the place where Perseverance searches for signs of life as part of its second scientific campaign. Specifically, this collection consists of 1,118 individual images, taken by Mastcam-Z , a camera mounted on the rover’s head designed for this type of photography.
The delta in question was created by a river flowing into Lake Jezero some 3.5 billion years ago, depositing mud and sand on the crater floor.
Along with the images, NASA also released a video tour of the image narrated by one of Perseverance’s science operations team members, Rachel Kronyak. The tour takes a look at the hills, cliffs, sedimentary rock, rover wheel tracks, and collection sites where the samples are taken.
The rover’s tracks can be seen on the far left of the image from where it moved into the crater, while a 10-meter rocky cliff lies directly in front of it. These rocks have been supporting wind erosion for millions of years that have drawn these irregular shapes.
NASA hopes that Perseverance will answer a series of questions about whether Mars ever had microbial life.
Reference: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
