Helicopter Scouts Ridge Zone for perseverance

A member of the Perseverance rover science team explains why aerial imagery offers scientific advantages over ground-level imagery.

Ask any space explorer and they’ll have a favorite photo or two from their mission. For Kevin Hand, a scientist at NasaJet Propulsion Laboratory of Southern California and co-responsible for the first scientific campaign of the Perseverance rover, its latest favorite is a 3D image of the low ripples on the surface of the Jezero crater. The scientific team calls this area “Raised ridges”. NASA ingenuity March The helicopter captured the two shots in this stereo image on July 24 during its 10^e flight.

“Ingenuity allows the science team at Perseverance to be in two places at once,” Hand said. “Right now, we are at the Crater Floor Fractured Rough, where the rover is preparing for the first sample acquisition from the Mars mission. Yet at the same time, Ingenuity is providing detailed insight into potentially intriguing geological 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 could be an indication of past liquid water activity and therefore past habitability. The Perseverance science team wants to know if what’s good for the Sun’s third rock is good for Mars – and if so, if the Raised Ridges tell them anything important about Mars’ aquatic past.

“In 3D, it almost feels like you can reach out and touch the raised ridges,” Hand said. “But with its immersive beauty, the image provides a lot of detail. If you look closely you can see curious lines on the surface of several boulders. Are they just created by eons of wind and dust blowing over the boulders? , or could these features tell the story of water? We just don’t know yet.

These details are important. In their search for signs of ancient life on Mars, the team plans to drill a sample of rock or sediment into the raised ridges, which would take several Martians, or soils, days of driving to reach. With the footage from Ingenuity, the rover team now has a much better idea of ​​what to expect if they were to go and the scientific merits of doing so. In the coming weeks, the science team will be looking at this and other 3D images from Ingenuity and discussing the merits of such a visit.

“Since landing at Jezero Crater, it’s clear to all of us that there is an abundance of geological riches to explore. It’s a good problem to have, ”said Ken Williford, Associate Scientist for the Perseverance Project at JPL. “These aerial snapshots from Ingenuity provide the kind of actionable data that allows us to narrow our options and focus on exploring our corner of Mars.”

Learn more about the mission

A key focus of Perseverance’s mission to Mars is astrobiology, including looking for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the past geology and climate of the planet, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (shattered rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples on the surface and return them to Earth for further analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s approach to exploring the Moon to Mars, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., Built and manages the operations of the Perseverance rover.