It was a long and arduous climb, but NASA’s Perseverance rover accomplished it. Mars explorers on wheels arrive at the rim of Jezero Crater and stop to admire the view. The spacecraft’s first photos, taken from Observatory Hill on December 10, showed hills, ridges, scattered rocks, and cloudy skies. The spacecraft looked back over the rim and at the wheel tracks. This marks the beginning of a new scientific campaign that will follow the spacecraft’s adventures inside the crater.
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NASA’s Perseverance spacecraft captured this first view above the rim of Jezero Crater on December 10 from a location called Lookout Hill.
Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater in early 2021 and has since. They discovered organic molecules in ancient river deltas and built a collection of rock samples that NASA hopes to one day bring back to Earth for detailed study.
“While climbing the rim of Jezero Crater, our rover drivers did an outstanding job navigating some of the toughest terrain they have encountered since landing,” said Stephen, Perseverance’s deputy project manager.・Mr. Lee stated. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Statement December 12th.
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NASA’s Perseverance spacecraft has photographed the view down the slopes of Jezero Crater. The rover’s wheel tracks show the trajectory it followed as it climbed the rim.
Mars posed many challenges to Perseverance getting to the rim. The rover took three and a half months to climb to an altitude of 1,640 feet. We fought on a 20% slope and slippery road. Because of the combination of steep slopes and slippery terrain, the rover team tried different strategies to climb the slopes. Planners tested routes that could reverse, switchback, and buy the rover a little more.
“No Mars rover has ever attempted to climb a mountain this big this fast.” JPL rover driver Camden Miller said in late October:
Everything went well. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory posted a beautiful panorama taken just days before Perseverance reached its summit. The panorama highlights the ruggedness of the terrain the rover had to traverse.
Perseverance is currently embarking on a new ‘Northern Rim’ science campaign. NASA is already planning for the first year of the campaign. In total, the rover will travel four miles and visit four specific spots of geological interest. Additionally, more samples will be collected as the work progresses.
New wonders await. “This is from the rock that partially filled Jezero Crater, which was formed by a massive impact about 3.9 billion years ago, to the depths of Mars that were thrown upwards to form the crater’s rim after the impact. “It marks our transition to rocks of the Earth,” said Perseverance Project scientist Ken. Furry.
JPL’s video shows the proposed route along the rim.
The first major target is ‘Witch Hazel Hill’, a ‘scientifically significant’ layered outcrop. These layers offer a glimpse into Mars’ past. “As we descend the hill, we will travel back in time and explore the ancient environment of Mars recorded on the crater rim,” said Candice Bedford, a perseverance scientist at Purdue University.
Farley said the rocks the team will examine during the campaign are among the oldest found in the solar system. They can tell us a lot about early Mars and inform our understanding of early Earth. Mars and Earth are both rocky planets, but they followed very different paths. While Earth has become habitable to life as we know it, Mars has become inhospitable.
One of the rover’s major scientific goals is to help answer the question of whether Mars had microbial life in the distant past. Although some promising rocks have been discovered, scientists need to examine them directly. Meanwhile, Perseverance continues to explore new altitudes.
