NASA's Perseverance rover creates 'accidental Zen art' showcasing desolate charm of Mars

NASA’s robotic geologist Perseverance, which is busy uncovering secrets of Mars, has transmitted a desolate yet charming picture from the red planet. In its latest attempt, the rover has sent a picture featuring dusty martian rocks scattered in the barren land of Earth’s neighbour. “Making some accidental zen art as I drive. Mars may be desolate but it has a certain charm”, the Twitter-loving robot wrote in a post. 

According to the rover’s mission team, the image above was selected by public vote and was featured as "Image of the Week" of the Perseverance rover mission on Mars. The mission team revealed that the photograph was captured using Perseverance’s right Mastcam-Z camera, which is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast.

The rover has a total of five cameras on board and each performs unique and crucial operations. The Mastcam-Z has been designed to take colour videos and three-dimensional stereo images through its powerful zoom lens. Just like the Curiosity rover, which also has Mastcam cameras, Perseverance consists of two duplicate camera systems which are next to each other and point in the same direction. This orientation offers scientists a 3-D view similar to what human eyes would see, but the resolution is much better. These cameras also carry a zoom feature allowing detailed observations of targets considerably far away. 

Perseverance rover reaches an exciting location

In April, handlers of the rover revealed that Perseverance is now heading toward a location that has the highest chance of having signs of ancient Martian life. After landing at the Jezero crater in February 2021, the rover has been examining the location which once used to be flooded with water and was a river delta. 

As its next assignment, Perseverance will examine layered rocks which likely were submerged in water and might hold signs of life. According to NASA, life must have first started on Mars about four billion years ago, which is called the early Noachian period. Scientists believe that the red planet was much more friendly to life back then and was preserved until it was washed away