The first images from NASA’s rover Perseverance direct from Mars
Just minutes after NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover safely landed on the Red Planet, the spacecraft sent back the first color images of its new home.
The first image showed a rocky and dusty place with the rover’s shadow stretching over the ground. “Hello, world. My first look at my forever home,” the Perseverance team tweeted.
NASA shared a second image showing the view behind the rover with a tweet saying, “Welcome to Jezero Crater.” The crater was believed to have once been covered with water and rover will now look for signs of ancient microbial life on the planet.
NASA Perseverance’s video cameras and microphones will be capturing both audio and video from the Mars, allowing earthlings to experience the sounds on Mars for the first time.
The Mars Perseverance rover mission, which is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, addresses high-priority science goals and key questions about the potential for life on Mars. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith, paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
The mission takes the next step by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself. The Mars Perseverance rover introduces a drill that can collect core samples of the most promising rocks and soils and set them aside in a “cache” on the surface of Mars.
The mission also provides opportunities to gather knowledge and address the challenges of future human expeditions to Mars.
