This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has good purpose to be proud. It is finishing the very first sample depot on another world by depositing a set of tubes filled with rocks onto the Martian floor. To mark the event, the rover snapped a selfie that includes certainly one of its pattern tubes.
The rover selfie is made up of a number of photos stitched collectively into a complete. The rover snapped the pictures on Jan. 22. NASA will seemingly launch an official model of the selfie quickly, however picture processors have already remodeled the rover’s uncooked photos into full selfies.
Beginner Astronomer Stuart Atkinson shared a processed selfie on Monday displaying the rover wanting down towards the Martian floor.
A brand new “selfie” taken by @NASAPersevere utilizing its SHERLOC WATSON digicam exhibits it wanting down at one of many valuable rock pattern tubes it has left for a future mission to gather. The photographs had been acquired on Jan. 22, 2023 (Sol 684). Picture Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S Atkinson pic.twitter.com/UC2FHlIir8
— Stuart Atkinson (@mars_stu) January 23, 2023
Engineer Kevin Gill posted his own version of the selfie on Tuesday with Percy’s “head” dealing with the digicam.
Sol 684 self portrait taken by the Mars Perseverance Rover whereas standing over it is newest pattern tube drop.
Rover self-portraits are taken with the arm-mounted cameras with 59 particular person images taken and stitched collectively for this mosaic.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. Gill pic.twitter.com/knnwMSGLER
— Kevin M. Gill (@kevinmgill) January 24, 2023
Constructing the depot started in December 2022 and has taken weeks. The depot is specified by a particular sample and entails 10 separate tubes that look like little Star Wars lightsaber handles. Many of the tubes comprise small, chalk-size samples of Mars rocks collected within the Jezero Crater.
The depot is a backup plan for the longer term Mars Sample Return mission, a fancy, multistage endeavor that’ll intention to select up Percy’s samples and convey them again to Earth within the 2030s for nearer examine. NASA hopes the rover will probably be in fine condition when MSR arrives, so it will possibly ship the samples itself. If not, then the mission will ship a pair of small helicopters to the pattern depot website to select up the tubes left there. Percy has been accumulating samples in pairs, so it will possibly drop one and preserve the opposite on board.
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The Jezero Crater has an intriguing historical past of water and is dwelling to an historic river delta area. Rock samples from the delta space are notably thrilling. Scientists hope they will give us insights into whether or not the crimson planet as soon as hosted microbial life.
It is an thrilling time to be a rover on the crimson planet, and the pattern depot mission is nicely price a Martian selfie celebration. Wanting good, Percy.
