NASA's Ingenuity helicopter captures Mars rock 'mound' feature in 3D perspective

NASA on Friday released a rare 3D or anaglyph picture of the geologic feature of the Martian surface which the Mars Perseverance rover team calls “Faillefeu”. The image was captured by NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 13th flight at Mars on September 4, 2021. National Aeronautics and Space Administration created anaglyph imagery, best viewed with red-blue glasses, by combining two images taken 16 feet (5 meters) apart by Ingenuity’s colour camera.  “At the time the two images were taken, Ingenuity was at an altitude of 26 feet (8 meters),” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory informed in a release on Friday.

NASA’s Inguinity Mars helicopter’s rotorcraft captured the nuances of rocky outcrop during aerial reconnaissance, which is apparently a 3D view of a rock-covered mound. About 33 feet (10 meters) wide, this mound is visible just north of the center of the image, with some large rocks casting shadows on the surface of Mars.  The top of the image depicts a portion of “Artuby,” a ridgeline more than half a mile (900 meters) wide. And the bottom, running vertically up into the middle, portrays some of the many sand ripples that populate the South Seítah region on Mars. 

“The plan for this reconnaissance mission into the ‘South Seítah’ region of Mars’ Jezero Crater was to capture images of this geologic target – nicknamed “Faillefeu” (after a medieval abbey in the French Alps) by the agency’s Perseverance rover team – and to obtain the coloured pictures from a lower altitude than ever before: 26 feet (8 meters),” explains NASA, elaborating Inguinity’s perspective of the iconic 3D image. 

[This 3D view of a rock mound called “Faillefeu” was created from data collected by NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 13th flight at Mars.Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech]

[Credit: NASA]

Raised Ridges clue to Mars' 'past habitability'

The 3D image, viewed with red-blue glasses, shows Mars’ low-lying wrinkles, or "Raised Ridges," on the crater's surface. This is the region that holds new clues about Mars' watery past, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The image offers science advantages over ground-level images, Kevin Hand, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and co-lead of the Perseverance rover’s first science campaign said.

[This image of an area the Mars Perseverance rover team calls “Faillefeu” was captured by NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 13th flight at Mars. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech]

“Ingenuity is allowing the Perseverance science team to be in two places at once,” according to Hand’s statement to NASA JPL. “Right now, we are at the ‘Crater Floor Fractured Rough,’ where the rover is preparing for the mission’s first sample acquisition on Mars,” he adds. The 3D image features three of the key distinct surface fractures that converge at a central point, much like fractures in desert environments on Earth that may be a clue to past liquid water activity and thus past habitability.