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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMy Favorite Martian Image: Helicopter Scouts Ridge Area for Perseverance
NEWS | August 4, 2021
A member of the Perseverance rovers science team explains why the aerial image offers science advantages over ground-level images.
Ask any space explorer, and theyll have a favorite photo or two from their mission. For Kevin Hand, a scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and co-lead of the Perseverance rovers first science campaign, his latest favorite is a 3D image of low-lying wrinkles in the surface of Jezero Crater. The science team calls this area Raised Ridges. NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured the two shots for this stereo image on July 24 during its 10th flight.
Ingenuity is allowing the Perseverance science team to be in two places at once, said Hand. Right now, we are at the Crater Floor Fractured Rough, where the rover is preparing for the missions first sample acquisition on Mars. Yet at the same time, Ingenuity is providing a detailed preview of a potentially intriguing geologic features hundreds of meters away from us.
The Raised Ridges intrigue Hand and his colleagues because they consist of three distinct surface fractures that converge at a central point. On Earth, similar fractures in desert environments might be a clue to past liquid water activity and thus past habitability. The Perseverance science team wants to know if what is good for the third rock from the Sun is good for Mars and if so, whether the Raised Ridges tell them something significant about Mars watery past.
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/9004/my-favorite-martian-image-helicopter-scouts-ridge-area-for-perseverance/
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)That exceeds the original mission statement.
turbinetree
(24,695 posts)lame54
(35,287 posts)rsdsharp
(9,170 posts)Gidney N Cloyd
(19,835 posts)Demovictory9
(32,454 posts)n
rzemanfl
(29,557 posts)NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)... and I just happen to have one.
You can get them on Amazon in bulk, I believe.