NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover

23 meter drive, 2 meter climb. Approaching the south bank of Neretva Vallis where it will begin the climb out of the crater in the months ahead.

This photo was selected by public vote and featured as "Image of the Week" for week 180 (July 21 - 27, 2024) of the Perseverance rover mission on Mars. The rover acquired this image using its left-side MastCam-Z camera, it was acquired on July 27, 2024 (Sol 1221) at the local mean solar time of close to 3:55pm. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Driving away from Bright Angel where it obtained it's latest and potentially its most treasured rock core for sample return. Perseverance Mars Rover glances back and checks its wheel tracks in the sands of Neretva Vallis an ancient river bed. 4-tile NavCam after completing the drive. Details of the drive as soon as they are released NASA/JPL-Caltech

HazCam - Single tile - credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech

Visit the mission map here. https://mars.nasa.gov/maps/location/?mission=M20

It's updated shortly after each drive

Extracted / calculated from JPL's M2020 JSON URL's for the rover and the helicopter. The JSON URLs are updated after each drive. The helicopter URL is no longer updated as it crash landed during flight 72. If anyone wants the URLs let me know, I can share them here,

4-tile Post drive NavCam looking across Neretva Vallis - NASA/JPL-Caltech

See separate post for updated map and drive data

Episode 173 A vein-filled slab of rock discovered by Perseverance was already important evidence of water activity. But now the team has revealed that it’s the strange spots in between the veins that make this the most important rock yet found in Jezero crater.

Perseverance rover finds possible signs of ancient Red Planet life - "On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface."

Looks like we have the makings of a rather nice selfie from Perseverance rover. The full image set is currently being downlinked from Mars. Here's a quick and dirty mosaic roughly assembled using a selection of the available SHERLOC WATSON images.

The images were taken on July 24, 2024 (Sol 1218).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NavCam of the veined rock where the core was taken. The darker cone shaped tailings are where they acquired the core. The lighter toned patch is where they abraded the rock earlier. One possibility is that the drill went trough the rock into the regolith. We may get more clues when they get close-ups or the cored hole.

Perseverance rover acquired this image at 'Bright Angel' using its Left Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast. This image was acquired on July 21, 2024 (Sol 1215) at the local mean solar time of 15:48:23. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Thanks to the result of a heavy rover rolling over a soft rock, Curiosity has exposed a first-of-its-kind discovery on Mars. Rocks containing sulfur are common on Mars, but ones made of pure sulfur have never been seen before.

Mars Guy is Arizona State University associate research professor Dr. Steve Ruff, a Mars geologist with decades of experience exploring the red planet.

Detailed drive data. This data is extracted from JPL's JSON URLs after each drive.

Map has an inset with a zoom of the new location . North is up on these maps

9 NavCam tiles were assembled in MS-ICE. The workspace appears to show where light-toned and dark-toned rocks meet. I'll assume this will be an interesting site for the science team, so we could be here for a few days so they can study the rocks

Climbing above Bright Angel

Perseverance rover completed a drive to the north on Sol 1204 (June 10, 2024). Here's one of the post drive tiled-navigation camera images, this one is looking South-southwest. The total drive distance was 14.4 meters (47.4 ft). During the drive the rover climbed 2.3 meters (7.6 ft). The rover is still in Neretva Vallis, but has climbed high up the north bank of the valley.

Assembled from 16 tiles from the rover's L-NavCam (sol 1201). Lots of detail of the terrain where the rover was stationed off to the side of the current location. Zoom in if Lemmy hosts it full resolution [5113x3833px]

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech 😀

Episode 170 Last month, Perseverance encountered one of the most interesting rocks of the entire mission. It came with a bonus rock that could help explain key events in the history of Jezero crater, but only if Perseverance could make the right moves.

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Left Mastcam-Z camera.

Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast.

This image was acquired on June 29, 2024 (Sol 1194) at the local mean solar time of 10:03:45.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Perseverance looks east after a very short drive on sol 1195. The drive distance was just 33 cm (1.1 ft), probably to bring new targets within reach of the tools / instruments on the rover's robotic arm. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Postcard from Jezero crater: Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Left MastCam-Z camera. MastCam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast. This full frame image was acquired on June 29, 2024 (Sol 1194) at the local mean solar time of 10:04:23. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Inspired by a post from: https://fosstodon.org/@[email protected]