Photo of a rover of NASA perseverance shortly before landing on Mars on February 18, 2021. – NASA / JPL
NASA is not far behind. After 24 hours Successful landing of Diligence On Mars, the American space agency released a photo of its rover with its descent Touch Down.
The final approach to the de Gezero valley and its six-wheeled rover, still connected by its cables Jet pack. By the time the photo was taken, the diligence had already been separated from his parachute and heat shield. With its eight retro-rockets, the jet back allowed the rover to land smoothly. Then the cables were released, and then the jet pack crashed a little more.
On Monday, NASA is expected to release the full video of the landing. Diligence has a total of 23 cameras, and seven were active in the descent. This is the first time we have seen a video of the approach of the Red Planet with high definition and sound. As for Curiosity, NASA only proposed animation with photos.
The search for a past life
After the first black-and-white image since Thursday, NASA shared another high-definition surface image of Mars and the covering of rocks.
I like rocks. Look at these next to my wheel. Are they volcanic or sedimentary? What story are they telling? Can’t wait to find out.#CountdownToMarshttps://t.co/7w3rbvbyoL pic.twitter.com/H3q1M0YJAd
– NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (ASNASAPersevere) February 19, 2021
According to researchers, the Xero gorge belonged to a 50 km wide lake 3.5 billion years ago. After checking that all of its tools are working, diligence will work over the next few weeks and thereby analyze the rocks Super game, A Franco-American instrument that can remotely determine its chemical and mineral composition with its laser and multiple spectrometers.
Perseverance is only several months away from now Start taking samples Was the delta of an ancient river. Scientists are looking for biological features such as traces of fossil microbial life. Unfortunately, the analysis cannot be done on site. Samples will be stored in airtight tubes and brought to Earth by future work. If all goes well … 2031. So we will have to wait a while to find out if there was life anywhere other than Earth.
