Satellite spots NASA’s new rover – and its junk – from orbit

The Perseverance rover, along with several components used in the recent landing, were imaged from space.

The picture, captured by the ExoMars trace gas orbiter, reveals the location of the parachute and rear hull, the descent stage, the heat shield and, of course, the Perseverance rover itself. The spaceship Color and stereo surface imaging system was used to acquire the photo. Launched in 2016, TGO is a joint mission of the European Space Agency and Russia Roscosmos.

Perseverance landed in Jezero crater on February 18 an event that NASA managed to Capture on the film. “Jezero” means “lake” in several Slavic languages, which is precisely what this place was billions of years ago. Once the rover gets in motion, its main task will be to search for traces of ancient microbial life in this ancient body of water.

The descent stage is located at approximately 2130 feet (650 meters) the rover. This is the rocket-powered equipment that used cables to lower the rover to the surface, and then was zipped up to crash into a safe distance.. The parachute and the rear shell are approximately 3,950 feet (1,200 meters) northwest of the rover, while the heat shield is approximately 4,750 feet (1,450 meters) northeast.

Trace Gas Orbit acquired this image five days after disembarkation. Thethrown objects will become more difficult to see over time, because they will be more and more covered by Martian dust the years and decades to come.

In addition to this image, the orbiter assisted during descent and landing, acting as a data relay station for NASA. Satellite its primary mission is to search for atmospheric gases linked to geological – and possibly biological – processes on Mars. Trace gas orbiter recently made headlines when discovering a chemical process on Mars, although a process not associated with life.