Updated June 17th, 2022 at 20:00 IST
NASA's Mars rover finds 'tons of targets' for hunting life; shares fascinating new pics
NASA's Perseverance rover is having a pretty busy weekend on Mars as the robotic explorer is busy finding signs of ancient life in the Jezero crater.
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NASA's Perseverance rover is having a pretty busy weekend as the robotic explorer is busy finding signs of ancient life on Mars. In the latest development, NASA’s rover has beamed back fascinating new images offering a glimpse of its current location and its target rocks. In a recent Twitter post, the Perseverance mission team revealed that the rover’s current location is called the ‘bacon strip’.
From earlier, distant views, my team nicknamed this area “the bacon strip.” (My overhead map shows why.) Now that I’m up on top, we’re calling it “Hogwallow Flats” – and the nearby rocks are a sight to behold. My team is happy as pigs in mud(stone)!
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) June 16, 2022
Map: https://t.co/SEbqOKoQq1 pic.twitter.com/fsz5hFjmLF
“Now that I’m up on top, we’re calling it “Hogwallow Flats” – and the nearby rocks are a sight to behold. My team is happy as pigs in mud(stone)!”, the team captioned the post. “I mean, take a look at some of these close-ups. Tons of potential targets for study. Paradise for rock nerds like myself".
I mean, take a look at some of these close-ups. Tons of potential targets for study. Paradise for rock nerds like myself. pic.twitter.com/0uEHHVvZds
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) June 16, 2022
NASA shares map to locate Perseverance in the Jezero crater
The rover landed in the Jezero crater on Mars last February and has been examining and collecting the rocks for astrobiology. To keep track of the rover’s journey so far, NASA has shared a map to see the latest location and the path traversed by Perseverance while it collects samples to send them to Earth. As seen in the picture above, each white dot represents the end point of a drive and is labelled with the Martian day, or sol, that the rover stopped.
In a report, the mission team explained that the map (which can be accessed through the link in the tweet above) is composed of two layers– a high-resolution colour map covering the initial exploration area inside Jezero Crater, and a true-colour Northeast Syrtis regional map.
It further explained that the high-resolution base map was created using the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera whereas the broader colour base map resulted from a High-Resolution Stereo camera fitted on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter. "A high-resolution Digital Elevation Model was created from the images to provide critical information for rover drivers, who need to know how steep the hills are as they plan a path forward through this rocky terrain", the team wrote in a tweet.
Most recently, Perseverance made headlines after sharing pictures of a shining foil that was used during its landing a year ago.
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Published June 17th, 2022 at 20:00 IST
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