It was a long, hard climb, but NASA's Perseverance rover made it. The rover wheeled to the edge of Jezero Crater. The first photos from the Lookout Hill rover on Dec. 10 show hills, ridges, and scattered rocks. hazy sky.” The rover looked over the rim and back at his wheel tracks marks the beginning of a new scientific expedition following the rover's adventures inside the crater.
NASA's Perseverance rover captured this first view of the Jezero Crater rim from Lookout Hill on Dec. 10.
Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater in early 2021 and has since studied A ancient river deltafound organic molecules and created a collection rock samples that NASA hopes to one day bring back to Earth for closer study.
"During the ascent of the Jezero Crater rim, our rover drivers did an outstanding job negotiating some of the most difficult terrain we've encountered since landing," said Perseverance Deputy Program Manager Stephen Lee. Statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on December 12.
NASA's Perseverance rover provides a view of the slope of Jezero Crater The rover's wheel tracks show the path it took on its way up to the rim.
Mars posed many challenges to Persistence as it climbed to the brink. The rover spent 3.5 months climbing 1,640 vertical feet. The combination of steep and slippery surfaces meant the rover team tried different strategies: to climb the slope.Planners tested reverse driving, reverse driving, and a route that is weak gave the rover a little more shopping.
"No rover mission has attempted to climb such a large mountain so quickly." said JPL rover driver Camden Miller at the end of October.
It all worked out.NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released a beautiful panorama shot just days before reaching the summit of Persistence.The panorama highlights the steepness of the terrain the rover had to navigate.
Perseverance is now launching its new "North Rim" science expedition. NASA has already made plans for the first year of the expedition. The rover is expected to drive a total of 4 miles and visit four specific points of geological interest.It will also collect more samples as it continues.
New miracles are waiting. "It marks our transition from rocks that partially filled Jezero Crater when it was formed by a massive impact about 3.9 billion years ago to rocks from deep inside Mars that were thrown up the crater rim after the impact. to form," says Perseverance Project Scientist Ken Farley.
JPL video shows the proposed path along the rim.
The first major target is "Witch Hazel Hill," a "scientifically significant" layered outcrop. "When we get down from the hill, we'll go back in time to explore the ancient Martian environments recorded on the crater rim." says Purdue University Perseverance Scholar Candice Bedford.
The rocks the team hopes to study are among the oldest in the Solar System, Farley said. They could tell us a lot about early Mars and inform our understanding of early Earth. Mars and Earth are both rocky planets, though took very different paths.Earth became habitable for life as we know it, while Mars became inhospitable.
One of the rover's big scientific goals is to help answer the question of whether or not Mars once hosted microbial life promising rocksbut the scientists must verify them in person.Meanwhile, Perseverance continues its quest to new heights.
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