Perseverance moves across the barren outer rim of Jezero Crater
Click for full resolution. For original images go here and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! While most of the mainstream press will be focusing today on the 360 degree selfie that the Perseverance science team released yesterday, I found the more natural view created above by two pictures taken by the rover’s right navigation camera today (here and here) to be more immediately informative, as well as more evocative.
After spending several months collecting data at a location dubbed Witch Hazel Hill on the outer slopes of the rim of Jezero Crater, the science team has finally had the rover move south along its planned route. The overview map to the right provides the contest. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present location, the red dotted line its planned route, and the white dotted line its actual travels. The yellow lines mark what I think is the approximate area viewed in the panorama above.
That panorama once again illustrates the stark alienness of Mars. It also shows the startling contrast between the rocky terrain that the rover Curiosity is seeing as it climbs Mount Sharp versus this somewhat featureless terrain traveled so far by Perseverance. Though Perseverance is exploring the ejecta blanket thrown out when the impact occurred that formed Jezero Crater, that event occurred so long ago that subsequent geological processes along with the red planet’s thin atmosphere have been able to smooth this terrain into the barren landscape we now see.
And barren it truly is. There is practically no place on Earth where you could find the surface so completely devoid of life.
Some would view this as a reason not to go to Mars. I see it as the very reason to go, to make this terrain bloom with life, using our fundamental human ability to manufacture tools to adapt the environment to our needs.
Meanwhile, the science team operating Perseverance plans to do more drilling, as this ejecta blanket probably contains material thrown out from the impact that is likely quite old and thus capable of telling us a great deal about far past of Mars’ geological history.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for full resolution. For original images go here and here.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! While most of the mainstream press will be focusing today on the 360 degree selfie that the Perseverance science team released yesterday, I found the more natural view created above by two pictures taken by the rover’s right navigation camera today (here and here) to be more immediately informative, as well as more evocative.
After spending several months collecting data at a location dubbed Witch Hazel Hill on the outer slopes of the rim of Jezero Crater, the science team has finally had the rover move south along its planned route. The overview map to the right provides the contest. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present location, the red dotted line its planned route, and the white dotted line its actual travels. The yellow lines mark what I think is the approximate area viewed in the panorama above.
That panorama once again illustrates the stark alienness of Mars. It also shows the startling contrast between the rocky terrain that the rover Curiosity is seeing as it climbs Mount Sharp versus this somewhat featureless terrain traveled so far by Perseverance. Though Perseverance is exploring the ejecta blanket thrown out when the impact occurred that formed Jezero Crater, that event occurred so long ago that subsequent geological processes along with the red planet’s thin atmosphere have been able to smooth this terrain into the barren landscape we now see.
And barren it truly is. There is practically no place on Earth where you could find the surface so completely devoid of life.
Some would view this as a reason not to go to Mars. I see it as the very reason to go, to make this terrain bloom with life, using our fundamental human ability to manufacture tools to adapt the environment to our needs.
Meanwhile, the science team operating Perseverance plans to do more drilling, as this ejecta blanket probably contains material thrown out from the impact that is likely quite old and thus capable of telling us a great deal about far past of Mars’ geological history.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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